


Road Trips and Missing Persons

by AdrianaintheSnow



Series: Road Trips and Everything In Between [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Bad Parenting, Blood and Injury, Broken Bones, Car Accidents, Carjacking, Drugs Mentioned, Explosions, Gen, Guns, Kidnapping, Knives, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pepper Spray, murder mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:40:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 38,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23957053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdrianaintheSnow/pseuds/AdrianaintheSnow
Summary: Patton was just getting groceries. The next thing he knew, there was a knife at his throat and he was an unwilling uber driver. Virgil’s on the run after the murder of his dad, and it’s not just his paranoia that’s telling him he’s being chased down. He has to get somewhere safe, somewhere he can trust, and all he has is a couple of stories from his dad and a name: “Green Bellow Foods and Dispensary.”Meanwhile, everyone else is trying to find a missing 15 year old, all with different pieces of the puzzle about where he is. It really is too bad that no one is answering their phones.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Deceit Sanders, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Morality | Patton Sanders, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Sleep | Remy Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders & Deceit Sanders, Dr. Emile Picani & Sleep | Remy Sanders, Logic | Logan Sanders & Morality | Patton Sanders
Series: Road Trips and Everything In Between [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1827292
Comments: 864
Kudos: 579





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic I’ve been writing on my tumblr during study breaks 100 words at a time. It's been a lot of fun. Not sure how it will end up because I'm flying by the seat of my pants on it. I’ve affectionately named it the Goblin Brain Fic because it’s helping my brain actually get motivated for studying. Feel free give suggestion since I’m not 100% sure where this is going and you can help decide if you feel so inclined!

Patton had just been getting himself groceries. He was planning on making homemade macaroni and cheese for himself this weekend and went around the store grabbing all kinds of different cheeses (some which he did not recognize the names of and might not actually make good Macaroni and Cheese, but how could he resist the cute little goats on it) and little mini shell pasta. He also picked up some heavy cream and then headed to the cash registers with his spoils.

He’d been a bit distracted with his plans for cooking when he’d gotten into his car to drive home and hadn’t been paying as much attention as he probably should have.

The next thing he knew, there was a knife at his throat. He paused. “Hi?” he said tentatively.

“Put your keys into the ignition and drive,” a dark voice said into his ear.

Patton took a deep breath. “Sure,” he said, reaching forward to slowly do as the man asked. “Any particular direction we’re going in?”

“Fucking, I don’t know. Just drive,” he said. “I’ll decide later.”

“Alright,” Patton agreed and put the car into reverse. “Can I turn my head to make sure I’m not backing into anything?” he asked.

The knife retreated a bit in answer. Patton turned his head slowly and looked back while letting his foot off the break and quickly scanned his new friend out of the corner of his eye. There wasn’t much to be seen. He had a dark hoodie covering most of his frame, but a few tuffs of dark hair stuck out of it, framing a pale face with a streak of blood down his cheek and a purpling bruise near his eye.

Patton didn’t indicate that he’d seen any of this, instead choosing to turn back to face front and drive out of the grocery store parking lot.

The knife returned after that, though it didn’t touch him this time. It just hovered. Patton chose to drive towards the interstate, careful to keep his hands on the steering wheel and make no sudden movements.

“Why are you getting on the interstate?” the man behind him asked. There was caution in his tone, but he didn’t seem too suspicious of the move.

“You wanted me to drive and I don’t know where or how long. There’s a lot more driving to do out here than in town,” Patton explained. “Is that okay?”

“I…” he responded. “Yeah, sure.”

So, Patton continued to drive.

Eventually the knife started to retreat a bit, though it was still there. About 30 minutes into the ride, Patton decided it was okay to speak. “Would you like to come sit in the passenger seat?” he asked softly. “You can lean the knife across the console at my side. It’d probably be a bit more comfortable.”

The knife returned to Patton’s neck. “No,” he said firmly.

“Okay,” Patton agreed calmly.

Yet, despite his initial reaction, it was less than 5 minutes later that the knife dropped a bit again. “… I’m moving to the front seat,” he grumbled. Patton suppressed a smile.

There was shifting around in the back and then a body threw itself up into the passenger seat. He scrambled into a sitting position and rushed to point the knife back at Patton. Patton just kept driving. After a few minutes he relaxed a bit again.

Patton bit back the words ‘Put your seatbelt on,’ and instead said. “Figured out where we’re going yet?”

“Uh…” he replied. “Do you know any places associated with Green Bellow Foods?”

Hmmm… “There’s an abandoned factory near Livington. Would that work?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Let’s go there.”

“Okay, but fair warning, it _is_ about a 3-hour drive from here.”

“Great,” he hissed.

Patton glanced over at him. He was still just a blob of black fabric for the most part as the hoodie still covered most of his body, but when he looked over at Patton, he revealed a bit more of his face. Patton was surprised by how young it looked. He looked like a teenager, likely not even a legal adult. “Since we’re going to be driving for a while,” Patton broached after a few more minutes to let him settle in the front seat. “Can we get something to eat? I have a lot of cheese in the back, but I’m lactose intolerant so that’s probably not a good idea for a closed car.”

“You…” the boy started. “If your lactose intolerant why do you have an entire bag full of just cheese?”

“And heavy cream and shell pasta! I was going to make mac and cheese when I got home!”

“That doesn’t answer the question.” Patton noticed that the knife had drifted away from him as they spoke.

“I like cheese,” Patton said with a shrug. “Anyway, I can go through a drive through,” he tempted.

“I…” Patton saw him bite his lip nervously out of the corner of his eye. “Fine, sure. I guess. Just… just you’re going to have to use cash so no one can track your credit card.”

“Okay then,” Patton agreed with a small smile in his direction. “We’ll get off at the next exit!”

“Uh, yeah, okay,” he said. “Er… Don’t… try any funny business?”

Oh goodness. He was a baby. “Of course not.”

Signs for the next exist started popping up a few minutes later. They passed a blue sign with a couple of restaurant emblems on it.

“Looks like your options are Wendy’s, Chick-fil-A, Hardees, or Freddy’s. What’re you thinking?”

“Uh I don’t know? I don’t care.”

“You have to have some preference,” Patton said. “Go ahead and pick.”

He hesitated. “Maybe Freddy’s? I don’t think I’ve tried that before.”

“Sounds good!” Patton chirped. He pulled off at the exit into a medium sized town. The exit dumped them straight onto the town’s main street and Patton could see the sign for Freddy’s a bit down the road. “So…” Patton fished while they were stuck at a red light. “Why Green Bellow Foods?”

“No reason! Why do you care?” he asked, suddenly intense and defensive.

“Woah,” Patton placated. “I’m just curious. I’m the one driving you over three hours to get there after all. I just wondered why.”

“Right,” the boy said, curling in a bit on himself. After a moment he mumbled. “My dad knew the owner.”

_Did he now?_ Patton thought. He didn’t comment on the use of the word “knew.” The light turned green and Patton glanced over at him. “How old are you?” he asked.

“You don’t need to know.”

Patton hummed as the light turned green. “What if I guess and you tell me if I’m right?” He didn’t respond, instead crossing his arms over his chest defensively. “Let’s see,” Patton said anyway, glancing over at him. “Twelve?”

“What?! No! I’m 15!” Then he paused. “ _Hey!_ ”

“Fifteen, huh?” Patton asked. “Is that why you didn’t just steal a car? You don’t know how to drive?” His new friend gave him a wounded look that edged on a pout. “What do you want to eat?” Patton asked.

He bit his lip. “What type of food is there?”

“Mostly burgers and fries, but also chicken sandwiches and hot dogs. And ice cream! Well frozen custard, but ice cream!”

“Er… just order me a cheeseburger and fries.”

“And ice cream!”

“I don’t need ice cream,” he mumbled.

“Well, I’m getting ice cream.”

“Do whatever you want,” he grumbled.

Patton narrowed his eyes at him. The kid wanted, no he _needed_ ice cream, Patton decided.

Patton pulled into Freddy’s drive through and ordered two burgers with fries and drinks and a Dirt ‘N Worms concrete. Patton reached for his wallet and the boy startled, but he didn’t instinctually reach for the knife, Patton noted.

“Just getting my wallet,” Patton soothed, continuing to move slowly to take it out. He flipped open his wallet and took out a $20 bill. The boy relaxed again.

Patton greeted the drive-through worker with a cheery “hello” and exchanged the money for their food before thanking the employee and driving off. He pulled into a parking space in the Freddy’s parking lot.

“Do you mind if we eat real quick before hitting the road?”

He hesitated. “No funny business?”

“No funny business,” Patton swore.

“Then, fine.”

Patton put the car into park, and they started to eat their food. “So, what’s your name?” He got a suspicious look in return. “My name’s Patton,” he offered. “You can just tell me a nickname.”

“…You can call me Anxiety.”

Patton frowned a bit at the name but accepted it for the moment. He balled up the burger wrapper and stuck it in the bag. ‘Anxiety’ who had been just holding his awkwardly, followed his lead.

“Now for dessert!” Patton enthused and then made a show of freezing. “Wait. I forgot. I’m lactose intolerant.”

“How do you forget-?”

“And I forgot my lactaid pill. Guess you’ll have to eat it while I drive.”

‘Anxiety’ glared at him but took the ice cream. If Patton caught him smiling just a bit as Patton started to drive again, he didn’t mention it.


	2. Chapter 2

It had always been a quaint little house that his little brother and the boy’s father had lived in. It was a little thing with two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a kitchen that faded into the living room/dining room situated in a little neighborhood with a small park and a medium sized grocery store. At one point in his life, Janus had wondered why his brother preferred to live in such a small space rather than in their mother’s much grander house that edged on a mansion, but as he’d grown, he’d come to understand.

Mom was a bitch.

And even more of one than he’d thought apparently. Really? The father of your child? The father of your 15-year-old child? He knew there wasn’t exactly any love between the two of them, but he’d hoped there was at least enough respect not to murder the man.

God. Virgil was going to be crushed when he found out.

He shook off the thought. There was no time for emotions. First thing first. He needed to get Virgil out of here before mother deigned to remember his existence. Then he’d deal with the emotional fallout.

“Virgil!” he called into the house. There was no answer.

Janus frowned. It’s fine. He was probably just listening to his music like the angsty teenager he was, right? Except… Janus was pretty good at picking up when something was amiss given his current career and something… seemed… amiss, though he couldn’t place what.

That in mind, he paused to listen. He couldn’t hear any sounds in the house, so he started to walk forward a bit. He ducked his head into the kitchen and froze. The window above the dinning room table had been broken, leaving glass shattered across the floor. Fuck.

Had mom remembered Virgil’s existence. He hadn’t thought she’d outright send someone to kill the boy, but what if she _had_?

Janus took a breath and then quickly set about investigating the rest of the house. Other than the broken window, most of the house looked normal until he got to the only room in the house with the lights still on: Virgil’s room. The purple and black spiderweb comforter usually on his bed had been flung to the floor across the room and both of his lamps had been knocked over along with some decorations. Also, there was some radio like device on the floor and a bottle of pepper spray which, judging by the smell, had recently been used.

There was also still drying blood on the carpet, though thankfully not enough to indicate there’d been a murder. Janus swallowed. Okay.

Maybe mom had sent someone after him, but that didn’t mean he was dead. He smoothed his face out even though no one was there to see it and took out his cell phone. He found his mother’s contact in his phone and pushed the call button.

“Yes?” she answered on the third ring, her tone already bordering on annoyed.

“Good evening mother,” Janus spoke smoothly even though he could feel the blood rushing in his ears. “I heard about the _tragic_ ,” he made a point to subtly color his tone with sarcasm, something he’d learned from her, “death of Remington Gates about half an hour ago.”

He could hear the single eyebrow raise even from over the phone. “Yes,” she replied, “and?”

“Well I was just wondering if I needed to clean out my room at the house or if there would be another solution for the man’s son?”

“Ah yes, well,” she said, “that has been a… frustration.”

“Frustration?” Janus asked. Curious tone. Not scared. Curious, not scared.

“I had sent one of my men over to pick him up and bring him to me shortly after Mr. Gates’ death. However, he apparently resisted going with a stranger.”

Janus shivered at the thought of what one of his mother’s people would do to a kid who fought him when he was trying to follow her orders, but at least he (probably) wasn’t dead. “So, he’s been taken by your man and is on his way to your house now?”

“No.”

“No?” and as much as he tried, just a bit of panic seeped into his tone. He wasn’t sure if she noticed.

“No,” she confirmed, with an angry tsk. “Honestly, I know he’s _my_ blood, but one would think Kinsley could handle a 15-year-old child.”

“Wait… then, where is he?”

“That is the million-dollar question,” she scoffed, “The last I knew Kinsley was whining about washing pepper spray out of his eyes before he could track him down.”

“So… he’s on the run?” Janus asked. On one hand, good for Virgil. On the other hand… where the _fuck_ was his baby brother?

“Unfortunately, yes.” The way she said ‘unfortunately’ made it clear that she was far more unhappy about her orders not being fulfilled immediately than worried about the fact that her teenage son was missing.

“Perhaps,” Janus hedged, keeping his voice level. “You should send someone more competent. I would be willing to step in if you believe it’s necessary. Not to mention, he knows me.”

“You’re volunteering?” she asked.

“If it would be of help to you,” he said smoothly.

“Very well,” mother said. “I’ll send you Kinsley’s information. You can work with him.”

Shit. “Must I?” he asked in a bored tone. “It sounds as though he is quite incompetent.” He waited with his breath held.

“At least meet up with him to get the information he has but then you can send him back or shoot him for all I care. He’s proven himself to be useless.”

“I will do as you instruct,” Janus replied, relieved.

“I know you will,” and then she hung up.

Janus collapsed on Virgil’s bed when he was sure the call was actually disconnected with a groan to wait for the information on Kinsley to come through. While he waited, he pulled out his second phone. He considered it, knee bouncing up and down and then opened the text app.

‘Virgil is missing. Help?’ he texted and sent his location before stuffing it into his pocket again.

A few second later, details about Kinsley popped up including his current location using the tracker on his phone. He was in the park down the street.

Janus didn’t know if he was following Virgil or guessing but getting him out of the way would be a good starting point either way.

He pushed himself to his feet and after a moment’s thought, grabbed the stuffed spider Remy had given Virgil when he was eight off the boy’s bed. He’d… probably want that wherever he ended up.

He shoved it into the inner pocket of his coat and then left the little quaint house behind to head to the park down the road.

He glanced at his phone and brought up a picture of Kinsley. In theory he could just text the man and ask where he was as he’d likely been informed someone else was coming to find him, but it would be much more satisfying to surprise bash his face in.

He needn’t have bothered looking at the picture though as Kinsley was fairly easy to spot seeing as he was the only grown man crying with his head in a water fountain.

Janus could help but let his lips curl in amusement. Serves the bastard right. He walked straight up to him and grabbed him by the back of the hair. He squealed as he was pulled back and tried to fight back blindly.

“I’m your replacement,” Janus said coolly, and the man froze at his tone. “Where’s the kid?”

“Fuck. I don’t know man. He ran off. I’ve been trying to check the park, but my eyes,” he whined.

“Oh, boo-hoo,” Janus growled. “Maybe you shouldn’t have let a 15-year old pepper spray you.”

“He was prepared somehow, alright. Already knew his daddy was dead and was ready to fight.” How the hell had he… didn’t matter right now.

“Tell me exactly what happened,” Janus demanded, yanking on his hair harder.

He made a pained sound. “I broke through the window and found the kid in the bedroom. He refused to go with me and said screw his mom because she killed his dad. I smacked him good to get him to cooperate, but that just seemed to piss the little bastard off because the next thing I knew he was pepper spraying me.”

“And then?” Janus asked calmly.

“Then he ran. I don’t know where. I’ve been trying to find him. Assumed he ran to the park. Kids like parks.”

“I see,” Janus said and then slammed his face into the edge of the water fountain. “You know,” he informed the unconscious body. “I was given the option to shoot you.”

“Before you do that,” a voice said casually. There was the unmistakable sound of a gun’s safety clicking off. “I’d like to have a word.”

Janus turned slowly to look in the direction of the voice and, at first, thought he recognized the man, but then realized he didn’t have a stupid mustache and also the man he was thinking of probably would have (maybe) had enough sense not to point a gun a Janus when his brother was missing.)

Great. It seemed the other side also sent people looking for his brother. He’d thank Logan, but actually, screw Logan. He eyed the man pointing a gun at him idly. “Do you even know how to use that thing?” he scoffed. The moment indignation flashed across his face, Janus ducked down and charged at him, twisting his arm behind his back and kicking the gun away when it fell.

Yet, as soon as the element of surprise was gone, it became clear that Janus was physically outmatched as they grappled with each other for an edge. He was brought to the ground but rolled out of the way and kicked him in the stomach. Yet that didn’t deter him. Instead he kept coming at Janus, grabbing his arm and twisting it. Janus clocked him in the face and drew blood.

“Fucker!” the man spat but didn’t retreat at all. They continued to wrestle on the ground a bit when they were interrupted by another voice.

“Ooo! A fight! I wanna join!” Then another body slammed into both of them knocking the wind out of Janus as Remus threw Roman off of him only to pin him himself. “Hi JJ!”

“Remus, get off of me!” Janus said, shoving.

Remus did not seem inclined to oblige. “Hey, Ro.”

“You two know each other?” Roman asked, wiping off the blood coming from the side of his mouth.

“We’re double secret partners,” Remus replied with a wink.

“Oh…” Roman said seeming to get what he was implying.

“Great,” Janus said. “Now will you get the fuck off of me?”

“I don’t know,” Remus said in a sing-song tone.

“Remus,” Janus said lowly.

Remus blinked at the sudden darkness of his tone and then his eyes widened as he remembered what was happening. He was off him in seconds. “Right,” Remus said. “Jay, this is Roman. Ro, this is Janus. His brother’s missing.”


	3. Chapter 3

The man Virgil had carjacked, Patton he had said, hummed a soft tune as he pulled back onto the interstate. Virgil glanced down at the ice cream in his hands and took a second bite. Was he…was he actually serious about all of this?

Virgil was suspicious, but the guy had been nothing but surprisingly nice for someone who’d been kidnapped. The nicer he was, the worse Virgil felt about the whole, breaking into his car and threatening him at knife point thing. Maybe that was the point? Maybe he was hoping Virgil would feel bad enough to eventually just tell him drive to the police station so he could turn himself in.

Not likely.

It didn’t matter how nice the dude was to him, he was not going anywhere his mother might be able to find him. Nope. Not happening. Not after what happened earlier in the day. He’s just lucky he’d been snooping in his dad’s room trying to find where the man had hidden the Gameboy and found whatever radio thing dad had hidden beneath a floorboard under his bed.

Well. “Lucky” was perhaps not the right word, he thought as he stuffed an even larger spoonful of ice cream into his mouth while trying to force himself not to cry. Nothing was lucky about today.

He didn’t know why dad had the radio thing. (He was pretty sure at this point that he didn’t know a lot of things.) All he knew was that it was some type of communication device and his mother’s voice would have been undeniably clear on it even if people hadn’t been calling her by name. He hadn’t known what on Earth was going on. All he knew was that he’d backed away from it in horror and confusion when the message that Remington Gates was dead came through. Mom had said “good.” He’d hoped it had been some kind of trick, but when some guy had broken into the house to take him to his mother not even 10 minutes later, he’d pieced together the truth.

His dad was dead. His mom had killed him. And whatever her plans were for Virgil, Virgil didn’t want any part of it. Luckily, when he was 12, he’d watched a horror movie and hadn’t slept for a week. His dad had solved the problem by showing him how to use pepper spray effectively and then letting him keep a can of it in his nightstand in case anyone ever broke in to try to kidnap him. Virgil was… pretty sure dad hadn’t ever thought someone would break in and try to kidnap him.

He’d pepper sprayed the guy mom had sent and grabbed a knife from the kitchen before booking it out the back door.

The options had been the park, the grocery store, or try to make it to the nearest bus stop and hope a bus arrived soon. In a bid to be unpredictable, he’d gone to the grocery store. Of course, he’d needed to get out of the neighborhood and fast, but he knew a bus or any form of public transport would be easily trackable. The only solution was a car, but the problems with that were that Virgil didn’t have a car, he didn’t know how to hotwire a car, and his only experience driving had been when his older brother allowed him to drive a golf cart when he was 7 and he drove it into a pond.

Which had led him here, in a stranger’s car after waiting for him to come out of the store in the backseat and pressing a kitchen knife up against his neck. It had been… a day.

He finished the entire giant “concrete” ice cream thing Patton had got him and stuck it in the bag with the rest of the trash.

“Want to listen to the radio?” Patton asked. “Passenger gets to choose the station!”

“Er… sure.” Virgil reached forward to flip it on. They were far enough out of range that whatever station Patton had last listened to in town was now just static, so Virgil started to mess with the dials.

There didn’t seem to be any music channels that adhered to his tastes, so he just ended up on some pop station. He was just settling back into his seat when Patton’s phone started to ring from where he’d tossed it when he’d gotten into the car at the grocery store.

Virgil blinked at the phone. “Is that the Mission Impossible theme song?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Why does it sound like that?”

“It’s the kazoo version,” Patton explained.

“…Why?”

Patton just smiled. “I should probably answer it.”

“No!” Virgil said. “You’re not allowed to answer it.”

Patton shrugged. The music stopped after a few more seconds and then started up right after that.

“It’s my brother. He’s going to keep calling,” Patton informed him, “and if I don’t answer, he’s going to call the cops because he assumed, I was kidnapped. Which… in this case.”

“Shit,” Virgil said as the ringing stopped again only to pick up once more a moment later. “Shit. Fine. You can answer it, but I’m putting it on speaker and don’t try to tell him anything.”

“Yeah, alright,” Patton agreed easily.

Oh god, this was a bad idea. Virgil grabbed the phone and accepted the call before putting it on speaker.

“Hi, Lo.”

“Why aren’t you answering your home phone?”

“I’m not at home,” Patton said.

“Where are you?”

Patton considered it for a moment. “I’m… on a road trip.”

“A road trip?” the man on the other end of the line asked blankly. “What do you… what do you mean?”

“I mean, I got in my car and now I’m driving.”

“You were supposed to be home all week. Patton, I need you to be in the city right now. Where are you?”

Virgil shook his head wildly.

“I don’t know,” Patton said thoughtfully. “A road.”

“ _Patton,_ ” the man groaned. “ _Why?_ ”

“It’s just a thing that happened Lo, sorry if you needed me.”

“How is a road trip a ‘thing’ that just ‘happens,’ Patton?” he asked. Patton glanced at Virgil.

“Erm… it just did?” he said.

“Patton!”

“Anyway, I’m a little bit busy so talk to you later!”

“Patton do not hang up the phone!”

“Love you Logi!” He jerked his head at Virgil and Virgil hit the end call button.

The second the call ended Virgil groaned. “It would have been better if you just didn’t answer.”

The Mission Impossible Song: Kazoo Version started playing again.

“It’ll be best if you just turn that off,” Patton said.

“Won’t he just call the cops?”

Patton gave him a secret smile. “No, he’ll just think I’m being silly and ignoring him.”

“Do you do stuff like that often?” Virgil asked.

“Just enough so he doesn’t ask questions when I don’t want him to,” Patton divulged. “It’s a little brother thing, you know.”

Virgil flinched just a bit. A brother thing. He wondered where his brother was now. He’d always been nice to Virgil, but he’d also always been obedient to mom. He wondered if he knew about Virgil’s dad. The two had always gotten along even though he wasn’t Janus’s father, but mom was… mom. Virgil didn’t want to know whose side he’d take.

The ringtone ended and started back up once again. Virgil held down the power button until it turned off and decided to store it in the glove compartment so Patton couldn’t reach it as easily. (Though, perhaps he should have thought of that earlier, but he was new to the whole kidnapping thing.)

He sat back against the seat and started rubbing at the sleeves of his hoodie.

“Everything okay over there?” Patton asked.

“I’m fine,” Virgil snapped and then bristled under the raised eyebrow he got in return. “This radio station is just stupid,” he grumbled.

“Well, you can change it,” Patton pointed out.

The radio station wasn’t actually the problem, but it did give him something to do with his hands. He reached forward and started fiddling with the radio dials. About 10 minutes later he hit a radio station that wasn’t music, but some guy talking. Virgil paused on the station and sat back. Whoever the guy was, his voice was low and soothing.

Virgil closed his eyes and listened for a few minutes before he let out a startled chuckle. “He’s talking about Moth Man?”

He opened his eyes to see Patton’s face crinkled up into a soft smile. “He is.”

Virgil couldn’t help but start to giggle. He laughed so hard that it started to blur into sobbing. He felt a gentle touch on his knee and looked over at Patton.

“There are tissues in the glove box,” he told Virgil. Virgil nodded and reached forward into to the glove box to grab the Kleenex Box while still sniffling.

He blotted at his eyes and blew his nose before sticking the dirty tissue into his hoodie pocket.

Today had been a horrible day. He was exhausted. He leaned back against the seat and his eyes flickered closed.

“Do you want me to change the radio station?” Patton asked softly.

Virgil laughed again and barely restrained himself from going into another fit. “No, no,” he said. “It’s fine. I’ve gotta hear how it ends.”

“That’s fair,” Patton said and though Virgil had his eyes closed, he imagined he was shooting him one of those confusing soft smiles again.

The conspiracy theory radio guy kept blathering on about sightings of Moth Man in a deceptively calm tone.

Wow Virgil was tired.

…

Falling asleep while the guy you carjacked drove probably wasn’t a good idea.

That was one of the last coherent thoughts he had before he drifted off to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Janus shoved himself to his feet and while Remus would usually find it easy to laugh at him for the way his hair looked, the cold glare the other man was sending him was nothing like the glares he usual leveled at Remus. He did not want to mess with that glare. Remus had some self-preservation instincts.

“Your brother?” Roman asked, still on his butt and looking confused. Now _he_ Remus could laugh at right now.

Remus cackled. “You might want to find a new hair and make-up artist Ro-Ro.” Roman glared at him which just served to make Remus cackle more.

“I apologize for him,” Janus muttered.

Roman blinked up at him and a smile flickered over his face. “That’s a new one. I’m usually the one apologizing for him.”

Janus paused for a moment before he cracked a smile himself. “I guess you would be.” He stuck out a hand to help Roman to his feet.

“So,” Roman said. “You’re here for Virgil Gates then too?”

Janus nodded. “Yes.”

“I didn’t know he had any family other than his father and his uncle. Why didn’t D…” he stumbled over not calling Dad, “Dad”, “Sanders call you then?”

Janus’ mouth pinched in displeasure.

“It likely has to do with the fact that my mother killed his father,” Janus said blankly. Remus grimaced. Blank Janus was far scarier than glaring Janus. It meant he was feeling a whole bunch of things and didn’t want anyone to know it.

“Oh that’s…” Roman said awkwardly. “That’s heavy dude.”

“Yes. Heavy.”

“Well, we’ll snatch the kid up and make sure mommy dearest doesn’t get her hands on Baby Bop,” Remus said. “Won’t we Ro?” Remus gave Roman a look and he nodded once sharply.

“Of course, we will,” Roman said. “That’s why I’m here anyway.”

“I’m going with you,” Janus informed them.

Roman opened his mouth like he was thinking about arguing, but since Remus enjoyed having a brother, he cut him off. “Yep. Of course, you are Jay. Between the three of us, we’ll find him in no time. I mean, how far could the pipsqueak have gotten?”

Janus nodded sharply. He turned to Roman. “You were looking for him too, what do you know?”

“Not much more than you,” Roman answered. “There’d clearly been a break in when I checked the house and I found what I’m guessing was his,” he pointed a thumb at the unconscious man by the water fountain, “car down the road which a neighbor had said they’d seen someone come out of and go sneaking around the house. So, I figured Virgil and whoever broke into the house were probably still around,” Roman said. “I swung by the bus stop down the street, but no busses have left in the last half hour or so and I couldn’t see anyone around. Then, I thought to check the park and came here and heard you…er… talking to that guy,” Roman gestured to the unconscious body a couple feet away, “about finding him.”

“He didn’t know much else,” Janus told them. “Virgil pepper sprayed him and bolted.”

Remus snorted. “Good on him.”

A very small smile flickered across Janus’ face, but was gone the next second.

“Well that’s the park and the bus station checked,” Janus said.

“Would he go to any neighbors?” Roman asked.

Janus shook his head. “Probably not. He doesn’t know many of them well. Ms. Owens maybe or maybe she would have seen something. She lives next to them.”

“We’ll start there then,” Roman said.

“What about this guy?” Remus asked while poking him with the toe of his foot. “He’s still breathing.”

“Call the cops,” Janus suggested. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic bag to toss to Remus who caught it. “Don’t leave fingerprints.”

“Why do you have a bagged-up gun in your pocket?” Roman asked.

“I was doing something before this,” Janus answered.

“Huh, see. That doesn’t answer my question.”

Remus ignored them in favor of rolling the body carefully over and shoving the gun into the guy’s pocket so it was visible, but didn’t look like it was supposed to be visible. He then handcuffed the guy to the water fountain and, just for funnsies, put a joint on him.

“All done,” he said after he’d positioned the man perfectly.

Roman was still side-eyeing Janus a bit but was on the phone talking to the police saying something about finding an unconscious guy with a gun.

“And we handcuffed him!” Remus whisper yelled. Roman glanced at the unconscious guy.

“We handcuffed him to a water fountain because he seemed dangerous and we didn’t want him to get away.”

As Roman continued to talk to the operator, Remus sidled up to Janus and elbowed him in the side. Janus shoved him away grumpily, but not enough to send Remus stumbling. Remus took that as a sign that he was willing to talk.

“The little bastard’s fine,” Remus promised. “We’ll find him in no time.”

“He’s my little brother,” Janus said, and his tone was level and informative, but Remus could tell he was a screaming mess on the inside.

Remus nudged his shoulder a bit and Janus scowled at the ground and stepped away. Remus narrowed his eyes at him. Roman must have looked over and read the intention in the wiggle of Remus’ shoulders because he said. “Remus! NO.” That, however, did not stop Remus from launching his whole body at Janus and tackling him to the ground.

“Remus get off!” Janus yelled trying to smack him, but Remus just dodged and tucked his face against his chest. He was whacked on the back of the head, but not nearly as hard as he could have been.

“Forced affection!”

“Roman, come get your dammed brother off of me,” Janus groused while shoving at Remus’s head.

“Remus,” Roman groaned and Remus felt a hand pulling at the back of his shirt. Remus just clung tighter. “Let him go.”

He nuzzled his cheek against Janus’s shoulder. “But I love him.”

“You are a menace to society,” Janus retorted which was basically saying it back as far as Remus was concerned, especially with the way fondness seemed to leak into his tone. He shoved at Remus’s forehead again and Remus relented, hoping to his feet.

Janus sighed heavily and pushed himself into a sitting position.

Right as Janus made it to his feet, his phone dinged. It was his phone from Dad not the one from Janus’ mom, Remus noted as he took it out of his pocket. Remus leaned over his shoulder to get a look at what the text said. Janus spared him a glance but didn’t protest him looking.

Mission details were attached, and rather formal message read ‘Be at Bucking Bay in 30 minutes for a pickup. Please confirm.’

Remus could tell and he knew by the look on Janus’s face that he could tell too that Dad did not think Janus knew his brother was missing.

He silently opened the attachment and read the mission details before dropping the phone onto the ground and stomping his foot onto the screen until it shattered.

“No offence,” he said calmly, “but fuck your father.” He turned away toward the entrance of the park without another word. Remus swallowed thickly and shared a glance with Roman.

“We should probably follow him,” Roman said. “He knows where the neighbor lives.”

Remus nodded though he’d planned on following Janus even if he didn’t have information about the mission they were on.

They followed him down the street back towards where Remus knew Virgil and Remy’s house was (had been?… He didn’t think Virgil would be living there anymore if his dad was dead.).

Janus knocked on the front door of a house next door without preamble. It took a few seconds for the door to open. Even after working with Janus for the last two years, Remus was still surprised how quickly the other man’s face could transform.

“Good evening Ms. Owens,” he said smoothly, an apologetic smile on his face and a slight crinkle to his brow. “I was supposed to pick Virgil up to take him to a school play tonight, but he wasn’t home when I knocked. Would you have happened to have seen anything? I believe he may have left his phone at home.”

The woman who’d opened the door blinked at him in confusion for a few moments before a smile lit up her face. “Oh, hello Janus,” she said. “I did see him run out his backdoor a few minutes ago and hop the fence.”

“He went out the backdoor?” Janus said, a small frown flickering over his face for a moment before it disappeared. “Towards the grocery store perhaps?”

“He did seem to be going that way,” she confirmed.

“Hmm. Well I did tell him I would help him sneak in snacks to the play,” Janus said. “Perhaps he forgot and ran to get some. When did you see him?”

“Oh, about half an hour ago, give or take. I’m surprised he’s not back yet.”

Janus chuckled lightly. “Probably got tied up in the chocolate aisle. I’ll look for him there. Thank you, ma’am.”

“Oh, it’s no problem sweetie. Have fun at the play.”

Janus continued to smile until the door snapped shut. Then his face fell back into a neutral expression and he turned away.

“The grocery store,” he said. “Let’s look there. He does know the area so it would be a good place to hide.”

“Yeah, dude,” Remus replied. “I’m sure he’s off hiding in the chocolate aisle just like you said.”


	5. Chapter 5

Emile hummed a quick tune as he pulled into the grocery store parking lot near his apartment. He’d just finished his last session of the day with Kai and Remy had asked that he watch Virgil this evening after work and possibly this weekend, so Emile was picking up something to cook for dinner before heading over there. He was going to grab ingredients to make Virgil’s favorite dinner, spaghetti and meatballs (well his actual favorite dinner was pineapple pizza from the local pizza joint, but Emile wanted to serve the boy something at least somewhat healthy for once in his life.)

That in mind, he went straight to the pasta aisle. While contemplating which of the spaghetti noodles he should grab, he noticed a man with a cart also perusing the aisle. He glanced at the contents of the man’s cart. “That’s a lot of cheese there friendo,” he commented.

“I’m trying to make homemade macaroni and cheese,” the man divulged with a smile.

“That’s always fun,” Emile replied, smiling back himself.

“I’ve never done it before. Do you have any suggestions for noodles?”

“Hmm… how about shell ones?”

“Ooo, like the boxed Velveeta shell macaroni, but better!” He enthused. “Aw! They have mini ones!” He snatched the box excitedly. “They’re so cute!”

“They are,” Emile agreed as he finally selected the whole wheat store brand spaghetti and slid it into his cart.

“Thanks for the suggestion! Have a nice day,” the man said and turned to leave.

“Bye!” Emile called after him.

He then continued on his quest, grabbing pasta sauce and a lot of fresh vegetables to sneak into the canned sauce as well as to leave in his brother’s home with the hopes that either his brother or his nephew might actually eat something healthy for once if it was right there. (Doubtful, but Emile could hope.)

He then spent an inordinate amount of time, debating which popcorn to get. Emile was thinking tonight would be a good night for movies with Virgil, and Virgil’s favorite snack was popcorn. He really should get the less buttery one, but he knew that Virgil liked buttery popcorn more. Perhaps he should compromise and get plain popcorn, but that one healthier ranch flavored powder topping that he liked. Decided, he grabbed the popcorn and the topping and went to exit the snack food aisle. “Hey,” a man with a mustache drew his attention away from his task. “My friend lost his little brother in the store. Have you seen a younger teenager walking alone around here? We think he might have gone to the snack food aisle.

Emile frowned. “Nope I haven’t seen anyone. I hope you find him soon.”

“Thanks,” the man said already distracted with looking around again.

“Maybe try the front desk,” Emile suggested. “They could call over the intercom.”

“My brother’s already there,” the man replied waiving the suggestion off. “But thanks.”

“Well good luck!” Emile said as the man walked away towards the back of the store.

Gee, it took him almost 40 minutes to get groceries, he realized when he glanced at his phone in the checkout aisle. He shouldn’t let himself get that distracted.

Once he’d paid for the groceries, he took everything to his car and shoved them in the backseat. Right as he was about to stick the key in the ignition, he got a text message from his secretary.

‘Kai forgot his phone in your couch again, but your office is locked. Are you able to swing by really quick to let him in?’

He texted back ‘Sure! I’ll be there in 5.’ He wasn’t going to keep Kai away from his phone for the night and it wasn’t like the groceries he’d grabbed were extremely time sensitive. So, he drove back to the office.

Kai seemed thankful for his willingness to drive all the way back even if his ‘thank you’ was rather distracted as he was already typing something on his phone the moment after Emile handed it back to him.

He said goodbye to Kai and to his secretary and hopped back into his car intending to drive to Remy’s house. He’d just started the car when his phone started to ring.

“Yello,” he said cheerfully.

“Emile,” the serious voice greeted on the other end of the line. “This is Logan Sanders.”

Emile sobered immediately. “Hi Logan. Is something wrong? Do you have a patient for me?”

“No, actually,” Logan said. “It’s… about your brother.”

Emile froze. “What about my brother?” he asked. “Remy is on light duty.”

“He was yes,” Logan said. “However, there was a complication.”

“What type of complication?” Emile said and a bit of anger came to his tone unbidden.

“He was specifically targeted,” Logan said, and despite the calm way he spoke, Emile could detect the distress in his tone. “I’m very sorry, but he’s dead.”

“Oh, god. What about Virgil?”

“That’s the other thing,” Logan continued. “As soon as I heard of Mr. Gates death, I dispatched an agent to his home for protection, but when he arrived, his son was not there. There were signs of a break-in, but the perpetrator’s car was still there, and my agent believes Virgil fled the scene and was followed on foot. My agent is currently searching for him…”

“There’s a ‘but,’” Emile concluded.

There was a slight pause, just enough to tell Emile he wasn’t nearly as unaffected as he was pretending to be. “I haven’t heard from that specific agent in over half an hour.”

“Okay,” Emile gulped, suddenly feeling sick to his stomach. There were hundreds of explanations for that, but many of them were bad. “Okay. I’ll go look myself since I know him and where he might go. I’ll,” his voice cracked a bit. “Call you if I find anything.”

“Alright, and I’ll…” but whatever Logan was going to say was lost as a hand touched Emile’s shoulder.

Emile screamed and tossed his phone as he accidently slammed his elbow into the car horn making it blare.

“Calm down! It’s just me,” said a voice.

“Frickin Frozone shitake mushrooms terrible tigger fish paste and cabbages, Remington!”

“You could curse like a normal person, Emile.”

“And you could not break into my car like a normal person,” Emile shot back turning around in his seat to face his older brother. “I’ll presume you’re not dead then.”

“Aw, were you worried about me?” he asked.

Violence is never the answer. At least that’s what he told his patients. Emile punched his shoulder the best he could from this angle. It clearly didn’t hit too hard as Remy just laughed.

“Sorry, Em,” he said reaching forward to ruffle his hair. Emile slapped him away.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Mega Bitch Ex decided she wanted me shot in the head and I decided I didn’t want that.”

“What does that mean?” Emile asked.

“It means,” Remy answered. “I faked my own death and while she thought I was dead,” he dug something out of his pocket and dangled it in front of him. It was a flash drive. “I stole this.”

“What is it?”

“Super-secret spy business.”

“ _Remy_.”

“All that matters is she really shouldn’t have it and Logan will be very happy I got it away from her.”

“Speaking of Logan…” Emile had dropped his phone when Remy had surprised him, and the call had ended. He picked up the phone. “I should call him back.”

The phone was slapped out of his hand the second his picked it up.

“What the kriffing kriff Remy?”

“Please just say fuck. I beg of you,” Remy groaned. The phone starting ringing again from its place on the floor. Doubtlessly it was Logan since the last thing he’d heard was Emile screaming like he was being murdered.

“I need to answer that, Remy,” Emile said with a frown.

“You can’t. It’s too risky.”

“You literally just said you stole it for Logan. Why can’t I just answer the phone, say Remy’s fine actually, and he has a super-secret spy flash drive to give to you?”

“Because you don’t say shit like that over the telephone,” Remy told him while starting to wiggle his way into the front seat. “We’re going to take this thing to Logan in person and no one can know I’m alive until then.”

“I know you’re alive,” Emile pointed out.

Remy grabbed Emile’s phone when it stopped ringing and hit the power button to turn it off. He stuck it into his pocket. “Family doesn’t count,” Remy said. “…Also, I needed a ride.”

“Are you really going to keep my phone hostage this whole time and also what happened to your car?”

“It… uh… blew up,” Remy said. Emile stared at him blankly. “Yeah… so, anyway.”

“What do you mean it blew up?” Emile asked.

“I said ‘anyway.’”

“Saying ‘anyway’ doesn’t mean I just magically forget what you just said.”

Remy waved that off. “Anyway,” he said again. “We’ll have to pick up Virgil and … do something with him. I’m not leaving him home alone during this.”

“Right. I assume since you’re not dead that Virgil isn’t actually missing,” Emile concluded.

But instead of agreeing and telling Emile where Virgil was to go pick him up, there was silence. “Virgil is what?”


	6. Chapter 6

Roman and Remus piled into Janus’s car to head to the grocery store. It was pulled into Remy Gate’s driveway and only a few feet away whereas Roman had parked down the street and Remus had likely parked somewhere nearer to the park not that Roman cared to get into that death trap. (His father and Remus had built it together when Roman and Remus had been 14 and Roman loved them both dearly and dad was smart, but he wasn’t an engineer or mechanic and Remus was a beacon of chaos. It did not matter that the car had managed to hold up for almost 10 years whereas Roman was on his third car. He still would never trust the dammed thing. Ever.)

Janus’s car was the exact opposite of Remus’s. Roman wasn’t very good with cars, but even he could tell it was an expensive one (that was likely not constructed by a teenager and his dad in a garage) with no dents or rust and it still had that new car smell when he got inside. Roman could probably buy his apartment complex for how much money the thing was worth.

Yet, despite that, Remus seemed familiar with the car. He hopped straight into the passenger seat and started pushing buttons, the functions of which Roman did not know. One thing he did understand was the dials for the radio and that when Remus tapped the saved radio station under the 3rd slot, it switched to Remus’s favorite channel.

Remus then leaned back against the seat and put his feet up on the dash.

“Why do you have to be this?” Janus asked sounding exhausted the moment he opened the driver’s side door and the very intense bagpipe music met his ears. He reached into the car to slap Remus’s calves.

Remus didn’t move them but just smiled. “It’s piobaireachd day,” he said happily.

Janus shook his head and moved to sit down. He yelped immediately and shot forward on the seat. “You turned on the seat massagers?!”

“Of course, I turned on the seat massagers, Jay.”

“Ugh I don’t want those things on.” He started pushing buttons himself.

The hazard lights came on as well as the windshield wipers and some beeping started up. “Ugh! Remus! How do you turn these things off?” He slammed a hand against the dashboard and lights in the back suddenly were blinding Roman. “Stupid piece of scrap metal!”

Remus batted his hands away and put the car to rights again rather quickly. Janus mumbled a couple more curses under his breath but didn’t do anything more as he put the car into reverse and started driving down the street.

“Okay,” he said once they were moving, his creepily calm attitude back in place again.

So, this was Remus’s partner? Roman of course knew a bit more about what Remus did than most of the other people in the agency considering Remus was his brother. Not to mention, they were both the sons of Logan Sanders so if they wanted to talk about anything when they got together to have dinner every other Saturday, it was probably going to end up being about the covert spy operations everyone went on. (Dad pretended not to be a gossip, but at the end of the day…) So, Roman knew that Remus was a triple agent. He pretended to spy on dad for Barbara Nelsen when he was actually spying on Nelson for dad.

Roman also knew a bit about his partner. Remus had even let slip the nickname Jay a couple of times and talked affectionately about him. Janus was a double agent turning on Nelson to work for dad. However, Roman had not been aware that Janus was Nelson’s son, a fact which he’d surmised since Janus had said his mother killed Remy.

Which was… hmm. Obviously, dad had to know that information and trusted him enough to take his word as a double agent, but it still gave Roman a bit of pause. Not to mention, he was clearly a cold and efficient a liar which served to put Roman even more on edge.

The only thing keeping Roman from insisting they leave him was the way he acted around Remus. Remus had provided the only cracks in his carefully constructed calm but vicious front. Every time Remus did or said something Remusy, Janus would give him one of those fondly exasperated looks that only Remus could provoke, and they seemed to be more than just partners, but friends.

So, Roman was going to choose to trust him for a moment, attributing the roughness to his missing brother.

“What’s the plan?” Janus asked when they pulled into the grocery store’s parking lot.

“I have an FBI agent ID,” Roman said. “I can go push for information at the front desk.”

Janus nodded and his fingers tapped twice against the steering wheel before he stopped the nervous tick. “He might also hide outside the store. There is a small creek behind the store he used to go get muddy in. He will be, well… maybe he will be less likely to run from me and I know the area so I’ll check there. Remus can check inside the store while you ask around.”

“Okay, that works,” Roman agreed. “Meet back at the car afterwards?”

Janus nodded as he pulled into a parking spot. Remus slapped Janus on the shoulder before exiting the car and got a scowl at his back in return.

Roman shook his head and followed them out of the car. Janus separated from them a few feet before the door to the grocery store and Remus and Roman entered the store together.

“I’mma go check out the store,” Remus said.

“Okay, don’t do anything stupid,” Roman said as he walked away. He got a flippant wave in return. “Remus! Don’t do anything stupid, please!” And… he was gone. Roman shook his head and turned, searching for the front desk.

He reached for his wallet and smiled at the employee at the front desk. “Hello ma’am,” he said. “I’m looking for someone and I was hoping you’d help me.” He pulled out his only sortof fake FBI ID to show her.

“I’m looking for a teenager who has gone missing and is connected to a case and we have reports that he may have come in here. Perhaps you’ve seen him,” Roman said. He took out his phone to show her the picture of Virgil that he’d been sent only to find that his screen had been cracked and it wouldn’t turn on, likely damaged in the fight with Janus. Great. He looked back up the woman. “I apparently don’t have a picture to show you at the moment, but you’ve possibly seen him before as he lives in the neighborhood. “Virgil Gates?”

He got a blank stare in return.

Fantastic.

He spent another 15 or so minutes trying to explain to the woman who he was looking for (a difficult task as all he had to go off of was the memory of one picture that he’d been sent an hour ago) and getting shrugs and apologies in response. Eventually he left and looked around the store for a bit himself. His brother was suspiciously absent from everywhere Roman looked.

Eventually he wandered back to the front by himself only to see Remus coming from the checkout with a bag full of snack foods.

Roman crossed his arms. “You were supposed to be looking for a missing minor, not shopping.”

“Chill,” Remus said making Roman want to do the opposite of ‘chill,’ “I looked for the kid and shopped at the same time. I even got Cheetos!” he smiled widely as they left the store. “Also, I broke into their security office!”

“You what?!” Roman asked.

“I broke into their security office,” Remus repeated happily.

“And why,” Janus asked tiredly while walking up to them, “did you do that.”

“To get the security camera footage, duh,” he said pointing at a camera near the top of the door. “I figured he might have not gone inside, but the neighbor said he headed in this direction, so that thing probably saw him.”

“That’s actually pretty smart,” Roman said. “Though we probably could have just asked.”

Remus shrugged. “Luckily they apparently save security footage to a cloud and I was able to download it pretty easily. We should be able to see everything that happened inside and outside the grocery store in the last two hours assuming you’ve got something to watch it on.”

Janus nodded and led them back to his car where he took a laptop out of his trunk. Remus downloaded the footage and then handed it over to Janus. “You’ll be able to spot him best since you know what he looks like better than us.”

It took almost 20 minutes of Janus watching the surveillance video for him to find what he was looking for. “Got him,” he said. Roman leaned over to get a good look at the screen. The video feed was a bit blurry, but he could see a lanky teenager with dark hair running to the grocery store parking lot. He took a break when he got there and looked behind him probably to make sure he hadn’t been followed. Then he found a bush to hid behind. They watched for a few minutes until finally he hopped back up and started walking towards a car.

“What’s he doing?” Roman asked as the boy on the camera glanced around himself to make sure nobody was watching before starting to fiddle with something.

“Oh god,” Janus groaned, “why did I teach him how to pick a car lock? Emile was right.”

They watched as he managed to pop the door open to the stranger’s car and slipped inside. Not even 5 minutes later, a man with grocery bags got into the front seat though it was too blurry to see who he was or the license plate on the car. The car drove out of the parking lot after a few more minutes.

“God dammit, Virgil,” Janus hissed and Roman barely saved the laptop from crashing to the ground. “Now he’s just in the back of some random person’s car!” he started pacing back and forth, steam practically pouring from his ears. Roman was almost scared for Virgil when Janus managed to find him because he looked ready to commit a murder. “That was over an hour ago. Who knows where he could be by now! Who knows what could have happened to him by now!” And, oh, Roman realized. He wasn’t angry. Not really. He was terrified. “What the hell am I supposed to do?!” he kicked the car fender, leaving a dent and then he kicked it again.

Then a phone rang in his pocket and he froze, all emotion draining off his face startlingly quickly. Roman was confused because he was pretty sure he’d seen Janus step on his phone earlier, but the one he pulled out now was a different type. He glanced at the caller ID and said, “it’s my mother.”


	7. Chapter 7

Logan was a calm man. One would have to be with his chosen career path. Much of it was waiting quietly for the perfect moment or doing rapid calculations in one’s head while in the midst of danger and chaos. He had not made it this far in his career by being prone to emotional outbursts or irrational behavior

Logan was a calm, rational person.

Which is what he told himself even as he threw his phone across the room and it smacked the opposite wall. “God dammit Patton!” he yelled as the other employees in the control room all paused to glance at him before quickly looking away.

He took a deep breath and walked across the room to his phone. It was, of course, unharmed seeing as Roman had specifically worked with a manufacture to produce him an indestructible phone for his last birthday and on top of that had given him a life proof case for it.

Roman, his son, who he had not heard from for over an hour at this point. He clenched his fist around the phone. He could not get emotional about this. That would not be productive at this point. He needed to think. He needed to plan.

He needed someone to answer their _phone_.

Hearing of Remington’s death was already destressing enough on a personal level as he’d known the man for years. As a father himself, he had understood why Remington had wanted to be on desk duty since his son was born and had respected that. Emile at the time hadn’t even been a legal adult and there was the real risk that if something happened to Remy that his son would end up in the hands of the boy’s mother who at the time had simply been considered a “raging bitch” according to Remy, but had later proved herself that and more. So, Logan had never even thought about having him back in the field until Virgil was at least 18.

Yet, it had still happened. He was still dead, targeted by Virgil’s own mother.

As he imagined Remington would want, Logan’s first thought had been for the man’s son and he’d immediately dispatched Roman as he’d been the closet agent to the man’s house at the time. That is when things started to go even more wrong than just a missing agent.

The last Logan had heard from his own son, he’d been tracking down Virgil Gates and whoever Roman had assumed attempted to kidnap him. He’d found the kidnapper’s car still down the street and texted Logan that he’d checked the nearby bus station and would check the park next.

Thinking he’d had that sorted with Roman on finding the teenager, his mind had wandered to Janus, the boy’s brother. Logan had worried that Janus would have an intense emotional response to the situation and had sent the agent a fake mission in hopes of distracting him until the issue with Virgil was sorted. The text had been marked as ‘read’ only a few moments later, but there had been no response. That was… concerning to say the least. It was possible he had heard of Remington’s death himself and was distracted, but there would be no reason for him to ignore Logan’s text as he shouldn’t be aware Logan himself knew of Remington’s death. In fact, it would be more in character for him to text Logan back and inform him of the issue in that case.

After waiting for a few more minutes, he tried texting Roman again and got no response and then he’d tried again, and again. Soon it had been 20 minutes since he’d last heard from Roman and he’d attempted to call him. He hadn’t gotten an answer. After a few more phone calls he’d tried to call Remus to ask him if he’d heard from his brother, but he hadn’t answered either. He’d continued to rotate between calling and texting the two of them and sometimes Janus hoping one of them would pick up, but none of them did. With no word from either of his sons or his double agent about their whereabouts or the missing child’s, he’d decided to call the boy’s uncle.

When that phone call ended with a car honking and a scream and none of his attempts to call back got any response, Logan really started to panic. Or worry. Not panic. Concerned even.

Logan started to get a healthy amount of concerned.

There were only thousands of reasons he could think up for the radio silence from everyone with a connection to his agency in a certain geographical reason especially directly after the confirmed death of one of his inactive agents who lived in the area. Surely one of those thousands wasn’t that every one of them was dead including his own sons.

Thinking about his family, it occurred to him that considering Patton was an agent (though on vacation at the moment) and also lived in the area, he needed to call his brother as well. The relief from his brother actually answering his phone was quickly burned away by agitation as he was not where he was supposed to be (though a voice in the back of Logan’s head did wonder if perhaps that’s why he was still able to answer his phone) and was instead on an impromptu “road trip.” After providing no other information to Logan, Patton had hung up on him. He’d been sent to voicemail halfway through the second time he’d tried to call back; the bastard had turned off his phone.

So, the question was what to do now. He collapsed back into his seat and glanced at his phone hoping he’d received some form of communication from anyone in the last minute, but alas there was still nothing. He was regretting making his agents cell phones untraceable right about. He wondered if he could hack into Nelson’s network without her realizing; he knew she kept trackers on her agents. Janus at least would have his phone from her, and Remus might. Assuming, of course, she hadn’t ordered a hit on them and taken back the cell phones herself. He wouldn’t put it past her.

It was worth a try at least, he decided, booting up his computer. He had a better chance now since Janus had let him look at his phone a couple of times. However, neither of them had wanted to risk trying any hacking on it. Nelson had no qualms with taking out her own family after all. Logan had been suspicious that she’d killed Logan’s mentor years ago but hadn’t had any proof. Janus had confirmed this as fact almost two decades later when he’d told Logan she talked about the fact that she had killed her own father to him.

Remembering that fact made him more nervous for Janus (and Remus by extension). They had always been very careful, but the risk was still there. Not to mention if Janus was in emotional distress over the death of Remington then he might be less careful. He distracted himself from those churning thoughts by turning his attention back to the computer.

He wasn’t surprised that there were no weaknesses in her security that he could find. After all, they’d had the same teacher and she had doubtlessly learned more from him over the course of her life since she’d been his daughter. He took a break to look at his phone again after 10 minutes.

There were still no messages from anyone. He tried to call everyone’s phones again in quick succession, but no one picked up. He’d just pressed end after the voicemail picked up for Roman once again when a voice interrupted him.

“Sir?” Darlene said tentatively.

“Yes?” he ground out, still looking at his phone. He was trying not to snap at any of his employees, but it was getting difficult.

“We pinged an outgoing call from Virgil Gates cell phone,” she said.

“What?” Logan asked looking up at her. Both he and Roman had tried to call the boy’s cell phone, but it had gone directly to voicemail, and they’d assumed he’d either ditched the phone or turned it off. “Show me.” He got to his feet and she led him over to another computer.

On her computer, a map was pulled up and a little red dot lit up the place the call had come from. “Where is he?” Logan asked.

“Around Livensburg,” she answered.

“That’s almost 80 miles from the city,” Logan said. At least he was moving closer to Logan’s location instead of farther away.

“Well he seems to be on the interstate,” she pointed out. “Pretty easy to do.”

“Yes, the question is how the 15-year-old is getting down the interstate,” Logan said. “Check bus routes and calls to taxis,” he said to the room at large before turning back to Darlene. “Who did he call?”

“He was trying to call Emile Picani.”

“And didn’t get through I’d imagine.”

“No,” she confirmed.

Poor kid, Logan thought. “Well at least we have a starting point. I’ll send another team out to the location, though extreme caution will be advised.”

“I’ll go,” Fredrick volunteered before he could even ask.

“Thank you,” Logan said.

“I can go too,” Darlene suggested.

Logan nodded. “Because of the phone communication issues at the moment, I’m giving you a long-distance listening device and I expect you to have it on and on one of your persons at all times.”

They both nodded and Fredrick turned to go get the proper supplies while Darlene looked back at her computer.

“Another phone call just went out from Virgil’s phone,” Darlene said. “It’s to the phone you provided Janus Nelson. There’s no answer there either.”

Well that answered rather or not Janus was ignoring him in favor of worrying for his brother. Clearly something else was going on and Logan was afraid of what.


	8. Chapter 8

“What the fuck do you mean Virgil is missing?” Remy asked.

“That’s the second thing Logan said to me!” Emile said. “When he heard you died, he sent an agent over to check on Virgil, but there’d been signs of a break in and Virgil was gone. They don’t think he actually got kidnapped though because the car of whoever broke in was still there.”

“Well, then where the hell is my kid?!!” Remy yelled.

Emile flinched at his suddenly loud voice. “Leaping lizards Remy, I don’t know. I thought you did since you’re not actually dead.”

“Well I don’t!”

“Yeah, I’m getting that, calm down for a second.”

“Okay, right now is not a good time to tell me to _calm down,_ ” Remy said. “My kid is missing.”

“I know Remy,” Emile said in his professionally soothing voice, “but we have to think in order to do something about that.” Oh, he was thinking. He was thinking really hard right about now. He was thinking about how the person who sent someone to kidnap his son was the woman who’d just tried to have him fucking executed. God, Remy hadn’t even wanted her around his fucking kid when she’d just been a bitch and not an enemy agent out for his blood.

“We should call Logan back,” Emile suggested. “He might have more information.”

“No,” Remy said. “It’s still too risky.”

“ _Remy._ ”

“I said no, Emile,” Remy snapped. “What if she has him and intercepts the phone call. She doesn’t have any reason to hurt him right now,” other than the fact that he had quite the mouth on him and would probably piss her off by being a little shit especially if she wouldn’t tell him where Remy was, “but if she knows I’m alive she might.”

“Would she really…?”

“The woman just tried to shoot me with poisoned bullets. I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“Poison bull-? It’s not important,” Emile said. “If we’re not going to get information from Logan then how are we supposed to even start with finding Virgil?”

“Easy,” Remy said. “The tracker I put on him.”

“I’m sorry you put what on Virgil?” Emile asked.

“A tracker,” Remy said. “It’s in that bracelet he always wears. I don’t really want to go back to the house, but I think I left one of the devices to find him in here in case of emergencies.” He started digging through Emile’s glove box.

“Jiminy Crickets, you can’t just put a tracker on your teenage son Remy!”

“Why not?” Remy asked, still digging through the papers. Did Emile ever get rid of old insurance cards and also how many drive-through napkins did he need to keep?

“It’s an invasion of privacy,” Emile sputtered.

Remy waved him off. “Oh, please. I’m a secret agent, a (usually) off duty one, but still a secret agent. Sometimes I need to know where my kid’s at. Like now. Besides, I told him what it was when I gave it to him, and it lights up when activated. He can just chuck it out a window if he doesn’t want me knowing where he is.”

“Oh, well that’s okay then,” Emile said.

Remy hummed as his hand closed around the phone sized device hidden at the back of the glove box. “Ah, here it is.”

“When exactly did you put that in here.”

“Like two years ago,” Remy said. “Clean your car every once in a while.”

“Remington, I have _seen_ your garage.”

“Maybe, but I never claim to be responsible.”

The thing was out of charge, so he plugged it into the car, and it booted up pretty quickly. Emile leaned over to look at the map that popped up. Remy pushed a couple of buttons to activate the tracker.

A red dot appeared on the map and Remy blinked at it. “Where the fuck?” he asked. He pushed another button and the device beeped, finding Remy’s current location on the map and putting a green dot there. The map had to zoom out quite a bit to fit both dots on the screen. A number appeared at the top of the map. “Shit.”

“Please tell me that’s feet,” Emile groaned.

“How the hell did he manage to get 50 miles away? I’ve been ‘dead’ for less than an hour and a half!”

“Did one of Barbara’s people get to him?”

“I’m not… he’s moving in the wrong direction if that’s the case,” Remy said. “Her house is in town and the secret base I know of is north of here. He’s going south east on the interstate.” He squinted at the map.

“Well then where is he going and how is he going there?” Emile asked.

“I’m not sure, but you need to start driving.” Emile hesitated for a moment. “Now.”

He nodded and put the car in reverse before pulling out of the parking lot and turning toward the interstate.

“Hey, Emile,” Remy said pleasantly after about 2 minutes. “Remember how mother said to not speed unless it was absolutely necessary?” Emile glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “It’s absolutely necessary today.”

Emile gave him a slightly disapproving frown, but the car did speed up.

“So, what about poisoned bullets?” Emile asked.

“I’ve had a long day,” Remy said.

“Nope, no, you’re not getting away with that,” Emile said.

“We’re busy,” Remy tried.

“Assuming he continues to move in the same direction, we have over an hour car ride in front of us. So, talk.”

“You and talking,” Remy mumbled. “Why couldn’t you just be a secretive, suppressed secret agent like everyone else in our family.”

Emile shot him a glare.

“Emmmmmmmyyyyyyy,” Remy whined.

“Remington.”

“Okay… so it may have, sort of been, my idea.”

“ _Remy._ ”

“See, this is why I didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Please, tell me this is not why you wanted me to watch Virgil tonight,” Emile said.

Oh, yeah… Remy winced.

“Remy, you have to at least tell me if you’re getting me and Virgil involved in this sort of thing. Or better yet, not do that. What was I supposed to do if someone had come to the door to kidnap Virgil? Which they did, by the way!”

Remy shifted in his seat. “To be fair, the plan didn’t exactly go how I expected it to. You were just a precaution in case it took too long. I didn’t expect to ‘die.’ Or at least if she was going to try to kill me I though she’d hesitate more than 0 seconds.”

Emile spared him a glare as he merged onto the interstate.

“Okay, fine, so maybe I should have,” Remy admitted, “but she was up to no good! And I know I’m supposed to still be on desk duty, but I’d heard through the grapevine about her plans and, I mean, I was in the neighborhood. How was I supposed to know she’d see right through my lie about asking for money to buy Virgil a car?”

“Maybe because you’ve never asked the woman for anything, ever, especially in relation to Virgil and Virgil hasn’t even taken drivers ed because he’s still too scared to try to drive after the golf cart incident.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever babe,” Remy brushed him off. “Anyway, we were talking, and I think she maybe got a little pissy that I wasn’t drinking the wine she gave me. It was probably poisoned now that I’m thinkin’ about it. Anyway, she must have finally gotten tired of me and pushed a button. Suddenly a bunch of guards were storming the room and, man, they were definitely the shoot first, ask question types ‘cause they immediately started shooting at me. Luckily I was wearing the light weight bullet proof vest Logan’d gotten me and I dove under her desk and, let me tell you, for how organized she is about her criminal empire and how clean the rest of the house is, she doesn’t clean much under her desk. I think it’s probably ‘cause she doesn’t let any of the maids in there to clean. Honestly, that might be where Janus gets the whole leaving snack wrappers and tissues all over the house. Because gee her desk. And-”

“ _Remy._ ”

“Right, so, there I was under her absolutely filthy desk and I look up and she’s standing there staring at me and she just takes out a gun and _bang_ shoots at my head. Luckily it missed, but it ricocheted off her desk and ended up in my calf.”

“You were shot in the calf!”

“It’s not a big deal, I’m fine,” Remy said. “Anyway, those were the poisoned bullets.”

“You got shot with a poisoned bullet?!”

“Yeah, so, luckily it was a poison I got doused with once in Italy in my 20s and if you manage to survive it once, you’re good forever or whatevs, but like, I knew she thought it would kill me so I played dead. So, then after that, she called in Gilbert, you know Gilbert, the butler with the little trapezoid shaped beard? Yeah, so Gilbert comes in and she’s like, “get rid of his body” and he’s like “cool beans” or something to that extent. Anyway, he drags me out’a there, but the thing is Gilbert’s cool or maybe not cool because he’d totally bury my body without flinching, but he’s cool enough not to kill me himself or even run and tattle. So, I go, ‘yeah, not dead,’ and he’s like ‘Kay, but don’t tell her I knew that,’ and I’m like ‘jolly good, mate.’ Then I run off to her office (the secret one, not the one her and the armed guards are in) and steal the flashdrive. I go to get in my car, but she already ordered it to get blown up! I mean, rude, bitch! At least give my body time to cool. So, I end up hiding in the back of the catering company van that had come to get the kitchen ready for the gala she’s throwing later tonight which, I mean really, you’re serving shrimp and salmon, what type of monster are you? You do seafood and steak, not seafood and seafood. Ugh. Why did I ever have sex with her again? Anyway, I ride in the van to town and then bolt out of there before they can see me. Then, I get on a bus because I have a bus token in my wallet, but the bus driver is a bit chatty and this is a covert mission so I tell him my name is Gilbert, since Gilbert the butler was on my mind and that I am visiting my new granddaughter in the states but I’m actually from Quebec and I spoke French to prove it. I was going to get off near the one clothes shop on third, but then we drove by your office and I saw your car so I got off at the corner and picked your lock to get in your car and waited for you to come out because I thought that’d be quicker.”

“You’re doing the thing,” Emile said.

“What thing?” Remy asked flippantly.

“The thing where you use misdirection and slang to attempt to distract people from serious issues.”

Remy slunk down in his seat. “Ah, that thing.” Damn him and his stupid fancy psychology degrees.

“Is your leg okay?”

“Smarts like a bitch, but it was just a graze. I already bandaged it up and disinfected it.”

“Good,” Emile said. “Would you prefer if I yelled at you in chronological or alphabetical order.”

“I’d like to see you try out alphabetical.”

“Well,” Emile started. “First of all…”


	9. Chapter 9

After a few minutes of silence, Patton glanced over at the kiddo to see that he was curled against the car door, fast asleep. Patton grinned at the cute sight. He was an adorable little carjacker.

Thinking on that… The knife was left abandoned on the seat next to his thigh. Patton reached over carefully and grabbed the medium sized kitchen knife. He slid it into the pocket on the driver’s side door.

A practiced criminal, the boy was not. Which brought forth the question of why he had carjacked Patton. He was clearly running from something, but what and why?

Patton wished the boy would tell him his name. If he gave Patton a last name, he might be able to figure out who he was. If he was going to Green Bellow Foods, that meant he somehow knew about the agency or at least he knew someone who did and figured that they could help. He’d said his dad “knew the owner.” Patton could surmise from that statement that his father probably knew Logan (was possibly and agent) and that he was likely dead. Patton wondered if that death was recent and the reason the boy was on the run or if it had happened a while ago and the initiator of this situation was something else.

Either way, he was awfully young for… well whatever was happening to him, Patton didn’t actually know. Whatever it was, it made Patton sad.

Patton continued to drive toward their destination listening to the silly radio show the kiddo had picked out with wry amusement for another 15 minutes before ‘Anxiety’ started to stir. His eyes flickered open and he made a confused noise, squinting at his surroundings. He looked over at Patton and Patton did his level best not to coo at him.

“Tired?” he asked.

Anxiety made a grumbly sound and moved to rub the sleep out of his eye. As he moved his wrist, a flash of red light caught Patton’s eye and apparently Anxiety’s as well. He moved his wrist away from his face and blinked at it for a long moment. Patton watched confusion and then fear flash across his features. He ripped the bracelet with its blinking red light off his wrist and rolled down the car window. He’d thrown it out onto the interstate before Patton could even process what was happening.

“What was that?” Patton asked, confused.

“It’s a tracker, I’m being tracked,” he fretted. He wrapped his arms around his abdomen like he was going to be sick and curled forward into a ball.

“Hey,” Patton said softly. He reached over to touch the boy’s shoulder. “Hey, it’s okay.”

“It’s not,” he boy said, his breathing starting to come fast. “It’s not okay.”

“Let’s calm down and think about this,” Patton soothed, rubbing a circle into his skin with his thumb while looking for someplace to pull off. “How do you know it’s not someone good looking for you?” he asked.

“Because my dad gave me that tracker and my dad’s fucking dead.”

Oh. Patton had assumed, but it was still sad to hear. From the tone of his voice, Patton assumed it was recent. “Well, does anyone else know about it?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” he said. He started to yank on the sleeves of his hoodie, stretching the fabric near his wrist, “maybe my uncle.”

“Did you try to get into contact with your uncle at any point before running?”

Anxiety shook his head. “I didn’t have time and I didn’t want them to track my calls, so I turned my cell phone off.”

“Well, you’re already being tracked now,” Patton pointed out. “Calling can’t do any more damage and it might do some good if you can get ahold of him.”

He bit his lip. “I guess you’re right. Maybe I should try.”

He reached into his front pocket and pulled out a phone. He held down the power button until the screen lit up. “That,” he said, staring at his phone screen. “Is a lot of missed calls.”

“From who?” Patton asked.

“It’s a couple of unknown numbers.” His body language screamed terrified as he looked at the screen.

“Hey,” Patton said. “Do me a favor before you call?”

“What?” he asked.

“Reach into the pocket on the back of the seat you’re on and grab what’s inside.”

Anxiety squinted over at him. “This isn’t a trap is it?”

“What trap do you expect I keep hidden in there?” Patton asked amused.

“I dunno. A gun?”

“Ah, yes,” Patton said, unable to stop himself from grinning. “The age-old trap of giving the person who carjacked you a gun.”

“Well, maybe it’s a bomb.”

“In my car?” Patton said slowly. “Where we both currently are? Sitting a few inches apart?”

“A snapping turtle then!” Anxiety… snapped.

Patton just glanced over at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Fine,” he muttered. He turned slightly in his seat and reached his arm around the back of it. He pulled the contents out and brought it into the front seat. “A teddy bear?” he asked, nose wrinkling adorably in his confusion.

“His name’s Barnaby!” Patton said.

“Why?” Anxiety asked.

“Well he has to have a name.”

“No, why do you have a stuffed animal named Barnaby in your car?”

“He’s for emergencies,” Patton explained.

“What type of emergencies need a teddy bear named Barnaby.”

“This type of emergency,” Patton said. “You can squeeze him when you’re feeling ‘anxious,’ Anxiety.” He winked when the boy looked over.

Anxiety rolled his eyes but squeezed the bear’s pudgy stomach once. “Thanks,” he said after a moment.

“Of course!” Patton said. “Now, why don’t you try calling your uncle?”

Anxiety took a breath. “Yeah,” he said.

He typed a couple of buttons and then put the phone to his ear. “It went straight to voicemail,” Anxiety said. “That’s bad isn’t it?”

It could be, but Patton didn’t say that. “Maybe he just has his phone off for some reason. Is there anyone else you could call that might know where he is or anything about what’s going on?”

Anxiety thought for a few seconds and then he was messing with his phone again without responding to Patton. He pressed the phone to his ear and waited. He pulled it away after a moment and held down the power button until it turned off again. He stuffed the phone back in his pocket, eyes shining with tears.

“Hey,” Patton soothed. “Why don’t I get off the interstate at the next exit and we can figure out what to do.”

“I’m not going to the police,” Anxiety replied.

“That isn’t what I was suggesting. Continuing down the interstate’s going to be pretty predictable if you’re being tracked. We need to figure out what’s the best option from here.”

“You’re probably right,” he conceded. “Why are you even helping me though?”

“You seem like a good kid.”

“I kidnapped you by knife point,” he pointed out, but undermined his point by sniffling a bit.

“A good kid in a spot of trouble then.”

Anxiety gave him a skeptical look, but Patton just kept driving until he found the next exit at a small town.

Patton pulled into a gas station parking lot. “Get the map from the glove box, please?”

Anxiety leaned forward to do so and handed it to him.

“Okay,” Patton said looking at the map. “We’ve been driving for about two hours on the interstate minus our stop for dinner and we’re in Bluesburge,” he pointed at the little town on the map. So, we’re about 100 miles away from the factory. Now we’ve got two choices: continue to travel on the interstate or find some back roads.”

Patton looked over the map and did some calculations in his head. He’d never taken the back roads from Bluesburge to base before, but he had driven all around this area at the request of Logan who insisted his agents have a good lay of the land. (Patton had used that excuse to make his brother take him on many ice-cream runs over the years. Logan was always mad when he figured out halfway there what Patton had done and would rip into him about being lactose intolerant but could be soothed with mint chocolate chip.)

“The back roads would probably take about 45 minutes extra,” Patton said, “but it would be less predictable.”

“Back roads,” Anxiety said without hesitation. It was what Patton was going to suggest anyway, so he nodded.

“Alrighty then,” he agreed. “I’m going to have to get gas really quick. Why don’t you run in, go to the bathroom if you need to, and grab a snack while I do? I’ll give you money.” He reached into his wallet and grabbed a twenty. “Get me a coffee, please. We might be up late. Ooo, and a donut if they still have any at this time of day. If not, one of those pre-packaged cinnamon rolls are fine.”

“Um…” Anxiety said. “But you’re my prisoner?”

Patton raised an eyebrow at him, and he blinked down at the car seat.

“… Where’s the knife?”

Patton reached over to pat him on the shoulder.

“Wait… am… am I kidnapped now?” he asked.

“If you were kidnapped, I wouldn’t be sending you in to get snack food, silly,” Patton said as he brandished the twenty-dollar bill in his direction.

He took it slowly, his nose scrunched up. “You’re a weird adult,” he mumbled. “Why did I choose the weird adult to kidnap?” He turned and opened the car door before walking into the gas station.


	10. Chapter 10

Janus could feel his heartbeat speed up at he looked at his phone, but he didn’t dare let that show on his face even though she couldn’t see him. He calmly clicked the talk button on his phone. “Hello, mother. How can I help you?” he asked.

“I’d like an update on the situation with the Gates boy,” she said.

“I’m currently on his trail,” Janus informed her. “He had an unfortunate head start because of Kinsley, but I have managed to figure out he went to the nearby grocery store and saw him on security footage. I should be making more progress soon.”

“I see,” she replied. “The boy used his phone.”

Janus took a half second to pause at that. “Well, that’s good for our aims,” Janus replied levelly. “I assume you were able to track the call.”

“Yes,” she said. “He was attempting to call his uncle. He has managed to get impressively far. I will send you the details of his location.” She paused. “Wait, it seems he’s currently attempting another call to an unknown number. Strange, there doesn’t seem to be a record of it in any database. You wouldn’t possibly know the number 499-555-0721.” Fuck. That was his other phone number… the phone number of the phone he broke earlier.

“No, I don’t,” Janus lied. God dammit. Why did he break that phone?

She hummed, seeming to accept that. “I see you are still at the grocery store. I’m sending people to meet up with you at that location.”

Oh fuck.

“Is that really necessary?” Janus asked, sounding bored. “Surely I can handle it myself.”

“It will be more efficient to have multiple people working together especially with a drive that far,” she said. He could tell by her tone that there was no room for argument.

“Of course,” Janus replied.

“Good. I have already sent them your location.” She hung up without another word.

Janus looked down at his phone. “Well,” he said. “I’m dead.”

“That bad, huh?” Remus asked.

“She’s sending people to ‘help’ me.”

“Shit.”

“You said the security cameras upload straight to the cloud, right?” Janus asked.

“Yep,” Remus confirmed.

“Well. No way out of it then.” His phone beeped with details about Virgil’s location. Calmly, Janus walked around the car and opened the door to get the atlas Remy had gotten him when he’d turned 16. He’d scoffed at it because of GPS, but he’d kept it even when he’d gotten rid of the car mother had given him for the same occasion. He opened the map of the state and circled the location Virgil was at on the map.

Just as he finished that, he was also forwarded the names and locations of the two goons coming for him. “Convenient,” he said glancing at their current positions. “Remus, remember all the times you’ve talked about wanting to blow this car to hell?”

“Yes!!” he said excitedly. “To be fair it’s any car, but yes!!!”

“Wait!” Roman said. “Why are we blowing up the car?”

“Distraction,” Janus replied. “The path they’re on should take them over Washington Bridge, so if we blow it up on that, it should delay them by quite a bit. Plus, mom can track the car and they’ll probably loop back trying to find me.”

“Isn’t there, like, a better idea, maybe?” Roman asked.

Remus reached over and put his hand over Roman’s mouth. “Shh, Roman, let me have this.” Roman shoved him away.

“We’ll go get one of your cars, drive mine to the bridge, and Remus can do his,” he waved his hand at him, “thing.”

“…I still don’t think.”

“Trust us, Ro-Ro.” Remus threw an arm around his shoulder.

“See, that makes me think this is even worse of an idea.”

“Look,” Janus bit out. “I know my mother and as soon as she figures out I’m fucking her over, they’ll be literally gunning for us. Blowing up the car will delay them as well as destroy the tracker and any information they can get from the car.

“Okay,” Roman agreed, though he still didn’t seem comfortable with it. Apparently, he’d gotten all of the responsibility in the womb.

Speaking of… Remus had already taken the laptop and packed it back up before throwing it none to gently into the trunk. Roman winced, but Janus shrugged. It was going to get destroyed anyway. In fact, Janus tossed his phone into the trunk with it.

Janus couldn’t resist smiling at the excitement in Remus’s eyes as he slammed the trunk closed and made his way to the passenger seat.

“We’re taking my car though,” Roman insisted. “I’m not getting in his death trap.”

Having seen the car for himself, Janus nodded. “Agreed.”

They drove back to get Roman’s car and then Remus requested grabbing something from his own car.

“Why do you even have that in your car?!” Roman shouted from his car’s window as Remus unpacked explosives from his trunk.

“In case of emergencies!”

“What type of emergen-”

“This type!”

Janus just shook his head, and Remus packed the explosives into the trunk of Janus’s car and then himself into the passenger seat. Then they drove off towards the bridge only about 10 minutes away. Remus wiggled in excitement in his seat.

“Calm down,” Janus attempted to snap, but it just came out fond. Disgusting.

Remus just gave him a dopey smile.

Janus turned back to the road. “I hope you know this means your cover is blown as well.”

“Yeah, ah well, it was only a matter of time anyway,” he said, shrugging. “I will have to move though. That’s going to suck.”

Janus hummed noncommittally.

“Ooo, we should go in on an apartment together!”

Janus glanced over at him in surprise. “What?”

“And we can get a cat!” Remus said instead of answering him. “I love cats, but my current apartment won’t let me have one. That’ll be on the list of things to look for: an apartment that allows pets.”

“Why would we be moving in with each other?” Janus asked.

“Well, you’re not going to be living with mommy dearest after today and we’re best friends.”

“We’re partners,” Janus replied blankly.

“And best friends!”

“I… you… we’ll discuss this later. I have too much to think about right now.”

Remus shrugged and startled rambling about how ‘big the bomb is going to be.’ Meanwhile, Janus did his best to firmly shoved the words “best friends” as far down into his subconscious as possible.

They arrived at the bridge quickly and Janus parked his car in the middle of it; Roman parked at the other end of the bridge.

“Well, don’t leave anything in the car,” Janus said. Remus nodded, back to bouncing up and down in his seat at the prospect of the imminent explosion.

Janus trusted Remus to know what he was doing with the explosives and simply walked away from his car towards Roman’s. There was a loud explosion when they were about 200 feet away from the car. Janus suppressed a flinch.

“You could have waited until we were completely off the bridge,” Janus commented mildly.

“But we look cooler like this,” Remus argued with a manic grin. “Plus, I saw a car coming towards the bridge on the other side and didn’t want them to get on the bridge before the explosion.”

Roman had his window rolled down when they approached. “Remus is in back.”

Remus put a hand over his heart like he’d been wounded. “I’m your brother. I should get shot-gun.”

“I am not allowing you access to the radio. I’ve been on too many road trips with you.”

“Dad’s the one who insists on playing a mix of geek rock and explicit rap music which he completely doesn’t understanding the lyrics of,” Remus pointed out with a pout.

“And I should have disowned the both of you years ago. Get in the back seat.”

“But…”

Janus ended the sibling dispute by getting in the passenger seat himself.

Remus grumbled as he got in the back seat. Janus opened the atlas and found their current location on the map. “Get on the interstate heading East,” he instructed Roman.

The question of how on Earth they were going to find Virgil when he was moving rather quickly crossed Janus’s mind, but he smothered it. They’d stop and do some investigation once they were closer to his current location. It would be fine.

Roman glanced over at him as he started to drive and sighed. “You may have control of the radio as passenger,” he offered. “Just, please do not betray me.”

Janus sent him a wry smile and let himself get distracted messing with the radio. He flipped through a few stations before landing on one that seemed to be devoted mostly to Latin pop.

“Yes,” Roman said. “A great decision.”

“No,” Remus whined when he stopped on that station and leaned back. “You’re supposed to find the one that annoys Roman the most. It’s in the spirit of the road trip.”

“That seems ridiculous,” Janus commented.

“It is,” Roman agreed.

“Noooo. Embrace the spirit of the road trip.”

“Well finding a station that Roman likes seems to annoy _you_ the most. So, I guess I am ‘embracing the spirit of the road trip.’”

Remus made a mournful sound and Roman chortled. “You’re my new favorite person,” Roman said.

Janus found himself smiling despite himself.

“Just for that, I get naming rights for our cat,” Remus informed him seriously.

“What cat?” Roman asked.

“Janus and I are going to get an apartment together since his mom’s going to try to murder us both, and we’re going to get a cat.”

“Ah,” Roman said as though that made total sense to him. Janus guessed growing up with Remus made it easy to accept such statements. “Don’t let him name it. He’ll name it something stupid.”

“I will not!”

“You tried to name our hamster Sexy Dorito!” Roman exclaimed and then looked at Janus. “Who names a hamster… who names anything Sexy Dorito??” he asked.

“The same person who accidently died his hair neon pink on a covert mission,” Janus answered.

“Hey!” Remus said, leaning forward to insert his face between the driver and passenger seats. “No!”

“Put your seatbelt on, Remus,” Janus ordered.

“Oh, you’ve got to tell me about that one,” Roman said.

“No! Don’t betray me, Janus!”

Janus did, in fact, betray him.


	11. Chapter 11

Virgil smiled awkwardly at the cashier when he entered the gas station and went straight to the coffee machine. He went ahead and grabbed the largest size cup for Patton because they were going to be on the road for a while.

He… didn’t quite understand why the man was still going to be driving for Virgil when there was no knife involved, but hopefully it wasn’t a trick.

It was probably a trick.

He should probably tell the cashier he’d been kidnapped.

But then the cashier would definitely call the cops and, knowing his mother, Virgil would definitely be screwed. So, instead, Virgil put the lid on Patton’s now filled coffee cup and found that there was one plain donut with chocolate frosting still in the case. He grabbed that and then searched around the candy aisle for a bit. He finally settled on a pack of Red Vines and grabbed a blue raspberry slushie. If he was going to get axe murdered by some guy that kept a stuffed bear named Barnaby in his car, he was going to do so with a blue tongue.

He handed over the 20-dollar bill to the cashier and then gathered up the snacks and drinks to take them to the car.

He caught Patton with his phone in his hands while he was pumping gas. “Hey, what are you doing?” Virgil asked.

“Just sending a text to my brother so he doesn’t worry too much,” Patton replied quickly. Virgil gave him a suspicious look. When it became clear that Virgil wasn’t going to willingly take a step closer to the car after that, Patton sighed and held out his phone. “You can see,” he said.

Virgil set the drinks and snacks down on the hood of the car and took the phone. The phone indeed was open to just a string of emojis sent to someone called “Lo-Lo” in Patton’s phone. The string of emojis read “🛒🧀🧀🧀💵🚙👶🏻🔪🥺🚙🍔🍟🍦📞🤐📻😭😴😱👣🤳🧸⛽️🗺☕️😎👍 ❤️”

“There is… no way he’d understand that,” Virgil said. “I barely understand it and I lived it.” He paused. “I am _not_ a baby.”

Patton snatched the phone back. “I didn’t say you were.”

“You typed ‘knife baby’ in emoji!” Virgil said.

“Baby with a knife actually,” Patton said unrepentant. He grabbed his coffee and donut off the hood of the car and opened the driver’s door to put the drink in the cup holder and the donut on the seat. Then, he went to finish up pumping the gas.

Virgil frowned, but he did pick up his snack and drink and got into the passenger seat. He’d already thrown his lots in with the possible serial killer anyway.

Patton finished pumping the gas and got back into the car.

“Don’t sit on your…” he sat on his donut.

“Oops!” he said. He sat up and grabbed the donut to take a bite. “Still good,” he declared with a grin.

Virgil rolled his eyes and took a long drag of the slushie.

“Don’t get brain freeze!”

“Whatever da-” He froze, chocking on the word.

Patton looked over at him, his face turning serious suddenly. “Hey kiddo,” the man said softly. He reached over to put a hand on his shoulder and looked at him with warm earnest eyes that made Virgil want to believe his words. “I’m going to make sure you’re okay, okay?”

Virgil looked away from his far too knowing eyes. “You don’t even know me, why would you?”

“I like helping people when I can. A couple hours of driving aren’t much to make sure someone else is safe. I spend a lot of my life driving anyway.”

“What do you even do?” Virgil asked.

“I mostly do odd jobs for my brother.”

“That doesn’t sound like a real job,” Virgil said.

He started the car and began to back up as he answered. “Do you know much about real jobs, then?” he asked.

“Well…” Virgil said. “I mean, no, but… still.”

Patton smiled over at him. “Okay, I answered a question about me-” Did he though? Virgil narrowed his eyes at him. “Now you answer a question about you.”

“Why?” Virgil asked suspiciously.

“Well, we have an hour and a half of driving left and neither of us are kidnapped anymore, we might as well get to know each other.”

“…What’s the question?”

“What’s your favorite subject in school?” Patton asked cheerily.

“Really?” Virgil asked. “Is this what we’re doing?” Patton just smiled over at him and Virgil went about tearing open his package of Red Vines. “English,” he said taking a bite of his candy.

“I always liked History myself, but English was fun.”

Virgil hummed. “You have any family other than your brother?” he asked.

“Lo has two sons. They’re twins.”

“Cool,” Virgil replied.

“Favorite color?”

“Purple. So, you don’t have kids then?”

“Not of my own,” Patton replied. “But I helped with the twins when they were younger, and I like to think of all of my coworkers as my kiddos.”

Virgil’s face twisted up. He didn’t know much about adult workplaces, but… “I’m sure they appreciate that,” Virgil scoffed

“I like to think so,” Patton said, seeming to not even register the skepticism in Virgil’s tone. Was the man ever anything but chipper? “Favorite movie?”

“Ratatouille,” he said on instinct and then felt his stomach drop. His favorite movie was Ratatouille because Uncle Emile always insisted on playing it during movie nights. Dad would complain loudly because he knew that Emile and Virgil would spend the rest of the night making jokes about dad having the same name as the rat.

“I don’t want to play this game anymore,” Virgil said, choked.

Patton glanced over at him in surprise. “Okay,” he said softly. Virgil was thankful he didn’t try to push.

They drove for another 10 minutes. Virgil did his best not to think about… everything, but it got increasingly harder. He tugged on the sleeve of his hoodie, his slushie and Red Vines forgotten. Finally, Patton looked back over at him, his eyes concerned. Virgil curled into himself expecting him to try to needle Virgil into talking.

Instead he just smiled sadly at him. “Why don’t we play a different game?”

“I… sure,” Virgil agreed. Might as well. Maybe it would help. “What game?”

“Ooo!” Patton said. “How about ‘I Kill Your Cows’? Lo always threatens to kill me by the end of that game.”

“And that’s a good thing?” Virgil asked.

“Yeah!” Patton said, “Because that means I’m winning.”

Virgil puffed out an amused breath. “Okay. How do you play?” he asked.

“Well,” Patton said. “Basically, when you see a group of cows you can claim them and say ‘I have 10 cows’ or however many there are. Whoever says it first gets the cows. If you see a church or other place people get married, you can say ‘I marry my cows’ and then your cows double. If you see a graveyard, you can say ‘I kill your cows’ and reset the other player back to zero cows. If you see a barn you can say ‘I put however many cows in that barn’ and the cows go in the barn. When they’re in the barn, they can’t be killed, but they can’t be married either. You have to wait to see another barn before you can take them out again.”

“Alright,” Virgil agreed. “Sure. Why not?”

“Great!” Patton said. “There’s a field of them up there. Since you’re new to the game, I’ll let you grab the first few.”

Virgil squinted at the cows in the field. “I have 6 cows,” he said.

“Nice job!” Patton said.

Virgil rolled his eyes. He didn’t know what was impressive about counting a few cows, but he smiled a bit anyway.

They continued to play the cow game for a while. Patton was obviously really good at this game and obviously trying to not be as good at the game as he actually was so Virgil wouldn’t lose by a million cows.

They turned on the radio after a while. Unfortunately, the conspiracy channel had fizzled out by now, so they turned to a local station that played a mix of music.

“Can I take horses?” Virgil asked after about 20 minutes of play.

“Sure,” Patton replied. “Go ahead.”

“Okay, I have 4 horses.”

“Ooo!” Patton said. “That horsey is a palomino! I’ll trade you two cows for that horse.”

Virgil was pretty sure that’s not how it was supposed to work. But… Patton was 18 animals ahead… “20,” Virgil countered.

Patton glanced over at him. “5.”

“15.”

“10.”

“11, so I’m winning for once.”

He thought about it for a long moment. “Deal,” he finally said.

“Yes!” Virgil said excitedly. “I’m winning!”

Patton smiled over at him. “I have five cows,” he said.

Virgil’s head shot up to look out the windshield. There were, in fact, five cows in the pasture right in front of them. “Dammit!”

Patton coughed meaningfully.

“You can’t murder me like that and then get mad when I cuss,” Virgil grumbled.

“Aw, cheer up kiddo. At least we haven’t found a graveyard yet.”

“But when we do, you will guiltlessly murder all of my cows,” Virgil said. “Because you are truly evil.”

Patton just laughed at him. Virgil grumpily reached forward to turn up the radio so he could ignore him easier.

The song that was playing faded out as he did so, and the radio jockey came on the air. “Quick traffic update, there’s been an accident on I-26. A semi-truck full of cattle rolled over near exit 52 and eastbound traffic has been stopped. If you’re on I-26, we’d suggest you find an alternative route as it will take a while to get all of the cows rounded up.”

“Well I’m glad we got off the interstate when we did,” said Patton.

“Yeah,” agreed Virgil. “It would suck to be stuck in the middle of that.” He paused and listened to the radio jockey continue to explain that the semi had been carrying at least 150 cows. “Hey, Patton, can I claim cows remotely?”


	12. Chapter 12

Remus sulked in the back of Roman’s car. It wasn’t fair. His brother and his best friend were both in the front seat and had been mocking him for the past 10 minutes and they wouldn’t even put on an interesting music station. Roman had even told Janus about the time Remus had peed on a wasp sting thinking it would work like it did for jellyfish.

“We should play a car game,” Remus suggested.

“Absolutely not,” Roman said immediately.

“Come on Ro, it’s tradition,” Remus said.

“You kill my cows every time!” Roman said. “You could kill Uncle Patton’s cows since he’s always winning, but you always choose to kill my cows!”

“But RooooOOO.”

“No.”

“Fine,” Remus relented. “No Cow Game.”

“Thank you.”

“I spy with my-”

“ _No_ , Remus.”

Remus paused. “I’m thinking of an animal.”

“I’m not playing Remus.”

They sat in silence for about 20 seconds. “There’s a Kentucky driver’s license. One point for me.”

Roman chose to just ignore him now.

“Janus you’ll play with me, won’t you?” he asked.

“Remus, I don’t even know what you’re talking about, and you’re already annoying me,” was the answer.

“Come on if we’re going to listen to stupid music, we should at least play a game. How about we try to find things outside of the car in alphabetical order. I’ll start. Airport sign! Now you find something starting with the letter ‘b’.”

Does the annoying bastard in the backseat count?” Janus grumbled under his breath.

“No,” Remus replied with a grin. “It’s got to be something outside of the car.”

Janus didn’t respond to that and Remus pouted. He went through a bunch of different car games he knew and tried to make some up, but none seemed to entice either his brother or Janus to play. While usually he might just give up after being ignored for so long, he noticed Janus’s hand start tapping a restless pattern on his leg after only about 10 seconds of Remus’s silence. So, Remus decided to drop the car games and instead just focused on being as annoying as possible.

…

“Theeeeeeeeee…. wheels on the bus go round and round!”

“I’m going to kill him,” Janus said blankly.

“That’s what he wants,” Roman said mildly. “Just ignore him.”

Remus kept singing for a long time. Eventually he ran out of verses, so he just started to make some up. “The strippers on the pole…”

“Oh my god,” Janus said. “I can’t handle this anymore.”

“Seriously Jan,” Roman said. “Just pretend he doesn’t exist, and he’ll eventually wear himself out.”

“In how long?” Janus asked, just the slightest edge of hysteria to his voice.

“It depends on if he’s had any caffeine today.”

Remus kept singing, but Janus and Roman remained resolutely silent on the matter until Remus eventually trailed off.

“This is boring,” Remus said.

Nothing.

“At least change the radio station to something not lame.”

Janus reached forward and turned the volume on the radio station up. Remus sat back in his seat and thought for a few minutes which is when he tuned into the radio station.

“So, if you’d like to request a song, you can call in or send a request through our new app,” the man on the radio said. Remus smiled widely and grabbed his phone from his pocket.

When he turned it on, he had a bunch of missed phone calls and text messages from dad. What? He opened the text messages and they all seemed to be asking the same question: ‘Have you seen your brother?’ Remus glanced up at the back of Roman’s head.

‘I’m not his keeper,’ he texted back.

Then, he closed out of the messenger app and pressed the button for the app store. He quickly found what he was looking for and pressed the download button.

It took a couple of minutes to download and about when it was over, he noticed Janus shoot a look back at him. He opened his mouth, doubtlessly to comment on Remus’s silence. Not wanting to be suspicious, Remus opened his mouth and let out his patented ‘banshee scream.’

“Don’t look at him!” Roman yelled over the sound of Remus’s scream.

“Why is your brother a demon from hell?” Janus asked, hands over his ears.

Remus ran out of air after a moment. There was a beat of silence.

“Can I please kill him, Roman?” Janus asked.

“No,” Roman replied. “Really, just ignore him.”

Janus grumbled under his breath and turned the radio station up even more. Satisfied that they were none the wiser, Remus opened the now downloaded app and quickly found the “suggestions” tab in the menu drop down. He didn’t even have to check the given list of suggested songs to know what he wanted was not on it.

So, he tapped on the button to suggest a different song and typed in the details of what he wanted before pressing send. Then it was just a waiting game and no matter what dad (and everyone else) had always said, Remus was good at waiting games. At least, he was when he wanted to be. Both Janus and Roman were looking resolutely ahead and Roman’s fingers were tapping to the beat of the current song on the wheel despite the fact that they were going over the speed limit to a crazy amount.

The song ended and a man came on the air.

“Hello, hello, hello,” the man said. “We’ll be getting right back to your suggestions on KSS-FM 102.9, but before that for anyone on Interstate 26, there was an accident near the Carlson exit involving a semi-truck full of cows. If you’re anywhere near exit 52, I’d suggest you moo-ve right on over to an alternative route.”

“Fantastic,” Janus hissed, slamming his fist against the dash.

“Hey, whoa, it’s fine,” Roman soothed, but Janus didn’t seem to be listening.

“Fuck,” he said.

“Hey, Jan,” Remus said. “You’ve got your map, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So, it’ll be easy to find an alternate route, yeah?” he asked.

“We don’t even know where we’re going!” Janus said. “How the hell are we supposed to find an alternate route?!”

“We know where he was right?” Remus said. “The cows might actually be a good thing. It’ll probably slow everyone down and we can guess what alternate route he might be using.” Janus didn’t say anything. “Here,” he said. “Gimme.” Janus handed over his atlas and Remus peered at it. “Yeah, here, see,” he said, showing it to him. “There are about four likely alternative routes someone might take near where Virgil was the last we knew. Three of them end up funneling into to Lincoln to get back onto the interstate and Lincoln has an ice-cream shop that got burglarized five times one summer, so they put up a security camera facing main street.”

“Please tell me you didn’t burglarize the ice cream shop,” Roman begged.

“You can prove nothing,” Remus said. He hadn’t actually, but he liked the distressed noise Roman gave in answer. “Anyway, I’d say we throw in our lots with that and drive to Lincoln to check the security camera. Even if he didn’t go that way, we can then make another guess based on where the 4th route went.”

“That…” Janus said. “Yeah, that’s actually a good suggestion Remus, thank you.”

“No prob Janny Fanny.”

“And you ruined it,” Janus said.

Remus just gave him the biggest smile he could.

Janus rolled his eyes and turned away from him to look back at the map. He grabbed a pen and circled the location that Remus had suggested. “You’ll want to get off at the next exit,” he told Roman.

Roman nodded. “Got it.”

Remus had actually almost forgotten in the interim about his absolutely fantastic idea until a few minutes later when the radio man announced the next song. Remus could already feel a smile creep up his face as the man snickered a little bit when he started speaking.

“Now,” he said, “we usually wouldn’t play this song, but it does seem… appropriate considering the trucks that crashed on I-26 and the person who suggested it wrote about why he wanted us to play it in the comments.” He broke for another short laugh. “As a sibling myself, I feel sympathy for your plight D-dongmaster-5000. So, here’s for you, stuck in a car while your brother and best friend hog the radio. I hope your road trip goes well.” And then, beautifully, the radio started singing the song of Remus’s soul.

_Two trucks having sex_

_Two trucks having sex_

_My muscles, my muscles_

_Involuntarily flex_

Remus saw Janus look over at Roman. Roman didn’t look away from the road. Instead, he just said with zero emotion, “Kill him.”

Janus vaulted over into the back seat as the radio crooned:

_Two pickup trucks_

_Making love_

_American made._


	13. Chapter 13

Remy was slumped down in his seat as Emile continued to lecture him on all the possible consequences of his actions over the past 24 hours. Jeezy creezy was Emile miffed about all of that. Remy had been trying to blow it off, but Emile was fully, painfully aware that he’d almost had lost his brother today and Remy was going to hear about it until Emile’s lungs aches.

“And another thing…” he said.

“Wait,” Remy said, and Emile did because there was a lace of panic to his tone.

“What?” Emile asked.

“The tracker stopped working,” Remy answered pushing buttons a little bit desperately on his device.

“It went completely offline somehow,” Remy said.

“Did it get turned off?” Emile asked. “Or run out of batteries?”

“It doesn’t turn off and the batteries are designed to last for years,” Remy said. “It can even track through 20 feet of water. The only way it could stop sending a signal this abruptly is if the thing was destroyed.”

Emile paused. “You said Virgil knows what the blinking light means.”

“Yes.”

“Is it possible that he knows, or well, ‘knows,’ you’re dead? Barbara did send a man after him, he could have mentioned it.”

Remy stared down at the device in his hands.

He pressed a couple of buttons and studied the screen for a moment. “You little shit,” he groaned. “You threw it out the fucking car window, didn’t you?”

“How do you know?” Emile asked.

“Because if I look at the history, it was going at 65 miles per hour down the interstate, suddenly stopped cold, and then went offline probably when another car inevitably crushed it.”

“Ah.”

“Well, at least the fucker’s probably okay. Dammit Virgil! Where are you going?” Remy pushed a few more buttons almost idly as he thought. “Let me get into Virgil’s head for a minute: emo music, dark clothes, would rather have his toenails ripped out than go to parties, makes split second decisions based on little info. Yep! Got him.”

Emile rolled his eyes, but Remy wouldn’t have noticed as he had his own eyes closed. “Hmm. So, I’m Virgil. My bitch mom killed my dad and sent someone after me. I have no idea what’s going on, but I bolt out of there because fuck mom. I want to get the hell out of dodge so I convince someone to drive me somehow, I guess, but where would I want to go? Someplace safe. Where’s safe? Maybe Emile, but obviously that’s not where he went. Or Janus, but he’s too connected to mom. I don’t really know anyone else, especially not someone who could help with this sort of stuff.”

Remy thought for another long moment. “Oops.”

“Oops?” Emile asked. “What oops?”

He could tell by the expression on Remy’s face that he was not going to like the answer. “I may have let something… slip.”

“What do you mean, Remington?”

“Um, well you see,” Remy said. “A couple of months ago Virgil was being, you know, himself: a little shit. He may have, possibly, found some papers.”

“What kind of papers?” Emile asked.

“They were nothing important!” Remy assured. “There wasn’t any dangerous info in them or anything, but…”

“But?”

“It is somewhat possible that they had the name on them.”

“How possible?” Emile asked, eyes narrowed on him.

“He asked what Green Bellow Foods was and why they needed 50 top-of-the line computers outfitted at an old factory.”

“And what did you tell him?!”

“Nothing!”

Emile glared at him.

“Okay, well I had to tell him something,” Remy mumbled. “I just kind of said that I knew the owner well and was working with him on some stuff. Then I told him not to worry about it, which was probably a mistake, because he’s _Virgil._ So, then I found him snooping in my car. At that point I had to sit him down and talk to him. So, I told him a bit about Logan.”

“Remy that’s _not_ nothing!”

“I didn’t use his name or anything. I just told him a couple of really, extremely, tremendously, vague stories, so he didn’t think I owed money to the mafia. Which, yes, he did suggest.”

“That’s worse!”

“What do you want from me Emile?!”

“Some common sense!” Emile answered. “I’ve been comparing you to the rat in Ratatouille for years, but I’m starting to think you’re more of a Pinky from Pinky and the Brain.”

“Hey, ouch,” Remy replied. “Also, I personally subscribe to the theory that Pinky is actually the intelligent one who is foiling Brain’s evil plots from the inside. So, there.”

“Now is not the time,” Emile said.

“Oh, it’s not the time to discuss cartoon theories?” Remy mumbled into his lap. “Must be serious.”

“It is serious! Virgil is missing!”

“Don’t you think I know that?!” Remy snapped. “I _know,_ Emile.”

There was quiet. Emile took a breath. “Okay,” he said, calmer. “Do you really think he’s going to Logan?”

“He’s headed somewhere,” Remy answered, “and wherever that somewhere is, it’s inexplicably down the most direct route towards base.”

“Well, Virgil is smart. I don’t think he’d just keep going so quickly without a destination in mind. We should call Logan.”

“Do you honestly believe Barbara doesn’t have your phone tapped when Virgil is missing? If you had one of Logan’s phones, I might agree with you, but as it is, we’d be giving away our position, and possibly clueing her into Virgil’s plan. If he shows up at base, Logan will take him in no question. It’s less dangerous for everyone this way.”

“Fine,” Emile said. “We’ll just keep driving towards Logan and hope you’re right about where he’s going.”

“Of course, I’m right,” Remy said lightly. “I’ve got the paternal instincts going on. Course, they didn’t stop the knife throwing incident of ’09. I blame Janus for that, though.”

Emile shook his head at him.

“It is good for when he tries to steal sweets, or that one time he brought home a baby piglet and tried to hide it from me in his bedroom. Or when he’s feeling anxious about something but won’t tell me because he thinks it’s silly.” Remy’s own fingers tapped out an anxious pattern against his knee. “It also worked with the golf cart incident, but it was too late. Again, I blame Janus. He messes with the paternal instinct meter. He’s far too unpredictable and I make the mistake of thinking he’s responsible, which he is half the time, but the other half of the time I remember that he’s still mostly a kid and one that grew up in an unstable environment. Did I tell you that last month they went and won a bunch of tickets at the arcade and used them to get those 5 ticket rubber ducks and just unloaded them all over my room? Honestly, you’d think a 21-year-old would have a better use for his money or at least have the brains to go buy them at a store. He could have gotten like 500 more ducks for the same amount of money. Of course, it was his mom’s money, so I guess I can get behind wasting it on arcade games and rubber ducks. The prank was apparently based on some comedy sketch Virgil found online.”

“You’re doing the thing again,” Emile pointed out calmly.

“Stop psych evaluating me,” he shot back.

“Fine, fine,” Emile said. “Keep distracting yourself from your emotional responses with silly stories. See if I care.”

“Thank you,” Remy replied. “I will.”

Emile sighed as he started back up again mumbling something about having taken away Virgil’s Gameboy after catching him playing it at 3 o’clock in the morning. He claimed this wasn’t because the boy hadn’t gotten any sleep on a school night, but because he’d insulted Donkey Kong to Remy’s face. After that story had run its course, Remy continued to babble at an increasingly fast pace about all sorts of things. Emile imagined most of the stories he sprouted off were quite embellished.

Emile had tried to turn on the radio once, but Remy had slapped his hand away saying, “The next one’s a really good one.” So, he had resigned himself to his fate of tuning out Remy’s coping mechanism to the best of his abilities and just focusing on driving for the next 45 minutes. Which is probably why he noticed that traffic had strangely decreased. He didn’t really pay the fact that much mind until the traffic suddenly increased… in the form of a wall of stopped cars.

“Jenkies, what’s going on?” he asked, as he came to a stop at the end of the line of cars.

“Um…” Remy said looking out of his car window. There, staring into their car with beady black eyes was a cow. As Emile watched, said cow leaned forward to drag its tongue across the passenger side window. “Shit.”


	14. Chapter 14

“You two doing okay back there?” Roman asked, glancing into the rearview window at them as he exited the interstate onto highway 236.

“We’re perfectly fine,” Janus replied evenly.

“Ow ow ow ow ow! You’re crushing me!” Remus complained. Janus was currently sitting on his chest, pinning him to the back seat.

“You should probably put your seatbelt on,” Roman advised.

“You’re probably right,” Janus agreed.

“No! Get off!” Remus said. “Or I’m going to scream!”

“Oh, because you don’t scream randomly when someone isn’t sitting on top of you?” Janus shot back. Roman officially liked Janus; he’d just decided. “Give me that!” Janus said, and a moment later, Remus’s phone was thrown into the passenger seat.

Remus whined and Roman glanced back at them once again, amused. That is when he caught sight of a car behind them. He glanced at his speedometer and then back at the car. Roman was currently going a little over 90mph, having slowed down a bit now that they were off the interstate. Yet, the car was gaining on them.

“Hey,” Roman said. “Wh-,” and that’s when a bullet came through the back window right past Janus’s head. “Holy fuck!” Roman screamed, swerving a bit before getting the car back under control. Remus grabbed Janus by the front of his shirt and pulled him down as more bullets rained on them courtesy of the car Roman had spotted. The glass from his car’s back window shattered over the two of them.

Roman pressed his foot down harder on the accelerator and started purposefully swerving to throw off their shots as Remus shoved Janus down onto the floor so he could lunge into the front seat. He grabbed the gun Roman stored in his glove box and loaded it with practiced ease.

“My bag,” Janus requested, and Remus threw the asked for object over his shoulder before rolling down the window.

“Methinks mommy dearest’s people may have found us,” Remus commented.

“What was your first clue?” Janus asked, digging through his bag, assumedly for his own gun. Remus stuck his gun out of the window and popped off a shot at the car behind them.

“You weren’t kidding about your mom trying to kill you, huh?” Roman asked.

“I betrayed her,” Janus said blankly. “It isn’t a surprise.”

“Shitty mom,” Roman commented.

Janus didn’t say anything, just finished loading his own gun and moved to roll down a different window. He shot off three shots in quick succession as Remus reloaded his own weapon before ducking down again as more bullets fired towards them.

Gee. Roman thought about Dad sending agents after him with a shoot first, ask questions later order. It was unfathomable to him. Dad’s policy was to attempt to not kill whenever possible even if someone was an enemy, let alone Roman. Yet, Janus was not even closed to surprised that his own mother’s men were clearly shooting to kill. There was no question as to what their orders were. They weren’t aiming for the wheels or trying to cut them off. They were gunning straight for the people in the car, particularly Roman at the moment because he was driving.

Roman scrunched down in his seat as much as possible. He glanced back at the car and saw that it had moved to the other lane. “Oh, no you don’t,” Roman grumbled as Janus and Remus continued to fire. He jerked the steering wheel to cut them off from trying to get along side them and pushed down even harder on the accelerator.

Janus finished emptying his clip and went to reload. “There are grenades in my bag!” Remus told him.

“Why do you have grenades in your bag?!” Roman asked.

“For when I’m in a high-speed chase with people shooting at me!” he yelled back.

Janus found the grenades in the bag. “One of these days you’re going to pull a grenade out of your ass and I’m not going to be surprised,” he said to Remus.

“Huh, you know, that’s not a bad idea,” Remus said cheerfully.

“If you even try it, I will tell dad on you so fast!” Roman told him. He again spun the steering wheel to cut off the car behind them.

“You’re no fun, Ro!” Remus claimed, crouching down again to reload once more.

“And I’ll tell Uncle Patton,” Roman threatened. He had to speed up even more to cut them off as the car behind them tried to pass them in the left lane again.

“No, it’ll be like the wasabi lecture of ‘07!” Remus bemoaned.

“Could the two of you give it a rest for five seconds?!” Janus asked.

“Nope!” Remus answered as he went back to shooting. “Might want to get those grenades going Jan!”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” Janus replied. He pulled the pin on one and went to toss it. Unfortunately, just as he was throwing it, a car popped up over a hill that Roman hadn’t seen coming directly towards them.

Roman yelped and turned the wheel so fast that his arms crossed over each other. Janus made a startled noise as he was half thrown out the window and Remus squeaked as he ended up flat on his back against the center console. A rouge bullet form Remus’s gun hit the top of Roman’s car as the grenade got throw far off course into a ditch.

Janus cursed loudly, shoving himself back into the car on his back. The car behind them also managed to make it into the right lane before it careened into the car Roman had just avoided. He saw the brake lights of the vehicle he’d passed turn on as Remus groaned and shoved himself back up, grabbing the gun from where he’d dropped it. Roman figured he was okay when he went straight back to shooting out of the window.

“Are you okay, Jan?” Roman asked when the man stayed laying on the backseat.

“May have broken a rib on that one,” he said. Yet, after a moment, he still managed to struggle back into a sitting position once more.

Well, Roman had to give him props for that one, but they’d be checking him out the next moment they weren’t being chased by people shooting. Roman glanced back in the review mirror at said car and… had the car Roman had almost hit turned around and also joined the chase? Fantastic. Roman sped up once again as Janus grabbed Remus’s bag again. Another bullet shot through the shattered back window straight past Roman’s head and embedded itself in the windshield. Roman flinched and was almost distracted enough that he didn’t notice the yellow sign warning of a curve up ahead and a suggested speed limit of 35mph.

“Uh, oh,” Roman said. “Stop shooting and brace yourselves!” He saw both Remus and Janus scramble to obey and slammed on the breaks. The steering wheel wobbled, but Roman was able to just barely keep enough control to not spin out. He tried to turn the wheel, but when he saw the curve, he knew immediately that he would not be able to pull that one off. He winced and continued to try to slow them down. They smacked into a delineator marking the curve, likely tearing it out of the ground and rolled a bit down a hill towards some sort of pond or maybe a lake. They stopped right before they hit the water and Roman had a split second to be relieved before his torso was thrown forward as the car that had been chasing them crashed into them and sent them straight into the body of water in front of them.


	15. Chapter 15

The next two hours were the most frustrating ones of Logan’s life. It seemed like the entire universe, or perhaps more accurately his entire family, was doing its best to make his life and job as stressful as possible.

He’d stepped away from his desk for less than one minute to make sure Darlene and Fredrick’s coms were set up to his specifications. He had them outfitted with what he would usually give to undercover agents. It was a constant feed of audio from their side and Logan could talk to them with a click of a button. It was on an entirely different frequency than anyone else used and, barring damage to the actual equipment itself, it should never go offline.

When he got back to his desk and checked his phone, he had a missed call and a text message from Patton. Of course. Of course, in the 30 seconds he is away from his desk, someone finally calls him back. He opened the text message. His first thought was, ‘Patton, you are lactose intolerant. Why are you buying so much cheese?!’ His second thought was that the string of emojis was unintelligible. What about a baby and a knife?! If he’d just bought cheese, why did he need to go get a burger, fries, and ice cream, and on that count, why more dairy?

He tried to call Patton back, but as he was beginning to expect at this point, there was no answer. Frustrated, he slammed his finger down on the end call button. ‘I have no idea what that means’ he texted him back. He set his phone back down on his desk after making absolutely sure his ringer was at full volume.

“Be sure to track all traffic updates in their path,” Logan said. The other people in the base snapped to attention, their fingers going to work at their keyboards. Then, he pushed the button on his desk. “Fredrick?” he asked.

“We just got on I-26,” Fredrick replied instantly.

“Good,” Logan replied. He sat down in his chair to rub at his eyes and grabbed his phone once more. He shot off texts to different people in a pattern he was getting very used to at this point. Then, he went back to look at Patton’s message once again. “Why must you always use these infernal things?” he asked the text from his brother. He looked over his shoulder and saw Clara looking up. “Clara,” he said. She flinched at his tone.

“Yes?” she asked hesitantly.

“Are you literate in the emoji text message language?” he asked.

“Um…yes?” she said.

He stood and placed his phone in front of her. “Can you make sense of this message from Patton?” he asked.

“Er,” she said, looking at it with a perplexed expression on her face. “I’m getting… he bought a lot of cheese. Then he kidnapped… or got kidnapped by a baby? He got fast food and then did other things… then got gas and coffee. Um, he says everything’s cool and he loves you.”

“He got kidnapped by a baby?” Logan asked skeptically.

She gave him a helpless shrug. “That’s what he said. He got in his car at the grocery store, but there was a baby with a knife and the baby made him drive.”

“Well, thank you for trying,” Logan said. He took his phone back from her and wandered back over to his desk.

“Okay,” Darlene was saying over the coms. “But why do you even need chair covers for your apartment?”

“To prevent damage and stains,” Fredrick said back.

“You bought them for $20 at a yard sale. They’re already stained.”

“Even more of a reason to make a seat cover for them! It’ll make them cuter, and since I’m sewing them, I can personalize! See look, here’s the pattern I’m using.”

“Fred, I’m _driving._ ”

They continued to chat idly about Fredrick’s latest sewing project. Logan was just content to have an open line of communication with his agents.

They eventually moved on from arguing the merit of chair covers and went on to discussing the pattern and color options. Well, Fredrick at least was discussing it. Darlene had descended into noncommittal hums, ‘yep’s and ‘I can’t look at that because I’m _driving_ ’s.

“Do you like this flower design or this flower design better?” Fredrick was asking.

“The first one,” was the answer.

“You didn’t even look!”

“Boss, there’s been an accident on I-26,” Emerson informed him from his desk.

“Where?” Logan asked.

“Around exit 52. The actual accident was only on the east side, but it was a truckload of cows, so it’ll likely affect Fred and Lena’s path.”

“Alright,” Logan said. “Find me the quickest alternative route.” Emerson nodded and turned back to his computer. Logan pushed the talk button. “There is an accident ahead of you,” he informed Fredrick and Darlene. “We will be giving you an alternate route. Stand by.”

“Yes, boss,” Darlene replied.

“Have them take exit 65 and get on Highway 236,” Emerson instructed.

Logan nodded and pressed down the button again. “You’ll want to get off on exit 65,” he told them. “You’ll take 236 until you’re past the accident.”

“Got it,” Darlene replied.

“We just passed mile marker 61 a few seconds ago, so we’ll be there soon,” Fredrick offered.

Darlene and Fredrick exited the interstate without any problems. It was a few minutes later that, with the obnoxious sound of a saxophone, the song titled ‘We Are the Number One Bad Guys’ (which was reportedly a mash-up of a song from a children’s show and a pop song) started blaring from his phone. Usually he’d be annoyed by hearing that sound as Patton and Remus had set it behind his back and he couldn’t figure out how to change it. Today, however, the sound was a relief. He grabbed his phone to look at the text message from Remus.

‘I’m not his keeper’ is what the text said in response to Logan’s many messages asking him if he knew where his brother was.

Logan stared at his phone for a least a whole minute.

“What’s wrong boss?” Clara finally hesitantly asked.

“I,” Logan said calmly. “Love. My. Children.”

“…Uh huh?”

Logan typed back a message he was certain at this point would not get a response, and then he hit the talk button on his desk. “So, Fredrick,” he said. “Tell me more about these chair covers. You mentioned flowers?”

“Uh…” Fredrick’s voice said. “Yes?”

Logan glanced up at the other agents in the room who were all staring intently at the designs in their desks. “Have you considered paisley?”

Logan focused on listening to Fredrick and Darlene’s conversation while the rest of the office focused on not looking at him unless it was to update him on the traffic for Fredrick and Darlene for the next 15 minutes.

“Whoa!” Darlene suddenly said, and Logan could hear the sound of braking through the sensitive listening devices

“What?” Logan pushed the button to ask.

“There were a couple of cars in our lane…” Fredric said.

“Was that a gun shot?” Logan asked when there was a loud pop on the other end.

“Uh… give us a minute boss,” Darlene requested.

He could hear the engines turn after a moment, likely as they accelerated again.

“What’s going on?” Logan asked.

“We’re, in a car chase now, apparently,” Fredrick replied, voice strained.

“Why?” Logan asked.

“I recognized the first car!” Darlene said.

“What do you mean you recognize the car?” Logan asked.

“I… shit!” Darlene said. Logan could hear the sound of tires squealing. A few seconds later there was a huge crash followed by a couple of incredibly loud splashes.

“What’s going on?” Logan asked.

There was cursing on the other end of the line in response and the sound of two doors slamming shut and then running.

“Darlene! Fredrick! What is going on?!”

There were a few more seconds where he could hear the sound of breathing and then the sound cut out halfway through the sound of a splash.

“Fredrick?” Logan said. “Darlene?” He took his finger off the button. “Please tell me we didn’t just lose the signal,” he said to the room at large.

There was silence.

“Please, someone tell me we didn’t just lose the signal to the high-tech spy gear I put on both of my agents.”

After a pause, Emerson finally spoke. “It’s… it’s not waterproof sir.”

“I see,” Logan said, his tone serene. “It isn’t waterproof.” He looked down at his hands settled on the top of his desk next to his useless talk button and the phone that no one seemed to be willing to call or text with anything useful. He turned his hands over, grabbed the bottom of the desk, and flipped the whole thing over. His computer smashed on the ground and the normally well-organized pens and papers scattered across the floor. “Well, why the _hell_ isn’t it waterproof?!”

No one dared to answer his question, and Logan pinched the bridge of his nose, surveying his broken computer and overturned desk for a few minutes.

Eventually, he straightened. “I need to borrow someone’s desk,” he said. Three people scrambled to their feet, but he held up a hand. “I’ll use Darlene’s,” They all scrambled back to their desks, “and send someone after those two!” He strode over to Darlene’s desk and sat at her computer. He pulled up every local news outlet he could find. They needed to find a new starting place, because he honestly didn’t know where to go from here.

He spent an hour trying to piece together what exactly was happening out there with news articles, police scanners, and other information channels. There was an explosion an hour and a half earlier in the city where this all started, and he worried that had something to do with the lack of communication as it was on the road from Nelsen’s base to the city. However, that still left almost 2 hours before that of silence from Roman and Janus unaccounted for. There were also two separate break-ins to the security office of the grocery store down the street from Remington Gates home which Logan imagined somehow was connected, but he couldn’t figure out _how._ And what did the cows have to do with it? Anything? Everything? What was going on? There was no news about whatever had happened with Fredrick and Darlene and the other team of agents he sent after them were still 20 minutes out from their last known location.

“Uh, boss?” a tentative voice said. Logan looked up at Clara who was standing at the edge of the desk. She flinched at the expression on his face when he looked up.

“Unless a member of my family or Virgil Gates has arrived at this base, I _don’t_ want to hear about it,” he snapped.

“Well…” she replied, “actually…”


	16. Chapter 16

Remy met the beady little eyes outside the car window with a glare. The cow gazed back at him, a challenge in its eyes. “What are you looking at, future minced meat?” Remy asked.

“They’re dairy cows,” Emile said, head on the steering wheel.

“How the hell would you know?” Remy asked.

Emile looked up at him. “The crashed truck says, ‘Robinson’s Family Dairy.’”

Remy pursed his lips. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

Emile gave him a droll look.

“Maybe they’re the rejects!” Remy turned back to the cow. “I bet you’re too stupid to make milk, huh?”

The cow let out a breath that fogged the window between them.

“Bastard,” Remy grumbled at it.

“You are talking to a cow,” Emile reminded him.

“Oh, like you don’t talk to stuffed animals,” Remy shot back.

“At least I don’t make enemies with them and insult them.”

“She deserves it!”

“She’s just standing there. You’re taking out your frustrations on a farm animal.”

Remy looked back at the cow, his eyes narrowed. Its eyes peered back at him and they did not need to share a language to understand each other in that moment. “I’ll show you a coward,” Remy growled, taking off his seatbelt.

“No, Remy,” Emile hissed. “Don’t you dare.”

Remy ignored him and opened the door to climb out of the car.

“We are on the interstate!”

“Now, you listen here,” Remy said, staring the cow down. “You’ve already caused enough problems for me today. The least you can do is not stare me down in my own…or well my brother’s own car. You feel me?”

The cow stared at him blankly and made a mooing sound.

“Are you understanding the words that are coming out of my mouth right now?”

“I promise you, she isn’t,” Emile offered from the car.

Remy continued to stare the cow down. Finally, after a moment of staring, the cow turned away.

“Ha!” Remy said. “I win.”

“Get back in the car before you get trampled by a herd of cows,” Emile said.

“I’m not going to get trampled,” Remy insisted. “If anything, I’m establishing myself as their ruler.”

“Is this a productive use of your time?” Emile asked.

“Oh, what?” Remy said turning back to him. “And sitting in the car doing nothing is such a better use of my time? Thank you for your input, doctor.”

“Remington, please.”

“Oh, stop with the full name, bullshit,” he turned to cow nearest to him, “no offence intended,” he assured it before turning back to Emile. “You’re not our mother!”

There was a pause. “Remy,” Emile said calmly. “I know you’re upset about Virgil, but...”

“In fact,” Remy talked over him. “I’m older than you! Do you remember who put you through college so you could get that fancy degree you keep using on me tonight? Because it certainly wasn’t our mother because she was already fucking dead! Don’t act like you’re my parent because here’s the thing, I raised you by myself for three years. So, if I’m a shitty dad, you’re definitely fucked up somewhere under that shining topcoat of head doctor crap.”

“I never at any point said-” Emile started, but Remy cut him off.

“Oh, but we both know you’re thinking it!”

“Don’t put words in my mouth, Remy.”

“No, no,” Remy said. “I know exactly what’s going through your head. I never should have been a parent, and I proved that with you when you were a teenager, but I still managed to knock up literally the worst person I could. I’m constantly making horrible parenting decisions and even when I try to be responsible, I mess it up. Virgil’s third word was a curse word and I’m lucky he never developed scurvy because I let him eat whatever he wants. He’s currently on a cross-country road trip with god knows who because I fucked up a covert mission I had no business being on and now he’s being tracked down by the woman who shot me with a poisoned bullet. I’m a horrible person and a worse dad. That’s what you’re thinking.”

There was a second where his brother looked at him with his stupid annoying face. “Have you considered that you’re projecting.”

“Ugh!” Remy threw up his hands and turned to walk away.

“Remy where are you going?” Emile called after him.

“I’m walking to base to go get my kid!” Remy called back.

“It’s over 70 miles away!”

He turned around and spread out his arms. “Then I’ll ride a bloody cow! It’ll be faster at this rate!”

“They’ll be cleared up in a few minutes Remy, come back here!” Emile said. Remy flipped him off. “I am _not_ following you on foot!”

“Good!”

Remy turned back around and strutted off down the interstate, skirting cows and police officers the whole way. He grumbled to himself and refused to turn back even when he was pretty sure by the flow of traffic that the accident must have been cleared 15 minutes later.

This was so stupid. Why was he so stupid and useless? Emile was probably glad he ran off like a petulant toddler so he wouldn’t have to deal with him. He’d probably be more effective finding Virgil without Remy messing it all up anyway. He kept walking.

After a couple minutes a car slowed and stopped next to him on the side of the road. Remy looked up to meet Emile’s eyes through the rolled down window.

“Get,” Emile said firmly, “in the damned car.”

Remy blinked in surprise and then hurried to do so.

Emile didn’t speak again until the car was back at a normal speed. “His first word was ‘dad,’” he said, “and he’s happy. I’m not a parent, but from what I’ve observed, parents are allowed to mess up. As long as they do their best and their kid knows they’re loved, they’re a pretty good parent. If you ask me, you’re a good dad.”

“Yeah, well his second word was ‘pizza,’ so I don’t know if it makes me that special,” Remy grumbled.

Emile glanced at him.

“I mean,” Remy continued. “Thank you and sorry.”

“Apology accepted,” Emile said. “You know I love you right?”

“Oh, god don’t get all mushy on me.”

“I’m serious,” Emile said. “I’ve been angry at you this entire trip because if you’d died today, I don’t know how I would have handled it. You were reckless, and it could have easily gotten you killed.”

“Don’t you think I know I’m stupid.”

“Stop that,” Emile snapped. “That’s not what I said.”

“Well then, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying, why, Remy?” Emile said. “Are you bored? Do you want to go back in the field?”

“No,” Remy said quietly.

“Are you sure?” Emile asked. Remy didn’t answer. “If you do, that’s fine.”

“It’s not though.”

“You’re the one who made that decision and it was 15 years ago,” Emile reminded. “If you want to change your mind, that’s fine, but if you’re going to do it, you can’t just go do it. You have to talk to Logan first, to me, to your kid. Your actions affect other people.”

“I know that.”

“I know you know that, but you just…You get so involved in your head sometimes and forget to think about the consequences. Or worse you ignore them because they’re too hard to think about.”

Remy reached forward and turned on the radio.

“Really?!” Emile asked.

“Chill,” Remy said, turning the volume down, “I just don’t want to have another cow disaster.”

Emile nodded and seemed content to wait for him a few minutes so he could gather his thoughts.

“I’m trying, Em,” Remy said. “Bless their souls, but I’m trying to not be our parents. It’s like walking a tightrope. Go too far one way, you’re an asshole, go too far the other your kid’s running from his mother’s hired guns and throwing out the tracking device you put on him because he thinks you’re dead.”

“It should have to feel like that for you.”

“Yeah?” Remy asked. “And how do you propose I stop it?” Emile looked over at him and opened his mouth. “Yeah, yeah, see a therapist. Do you have any suggestions that don’t require me to bare my soul and talk about my daddy issues to some random person?”

“No.”

“Rats.” Emile chuckled at him.

“If it’s any consolation, they would have hated how you turned out. I mean they 100% would have still loved you and would have adored Virgil, but you’d get so many side-eyes over the dinner table. I mean, a child out of wedlock, Remy?”

“They’d have tried to get me to marry her,” Remy said. “Then I would have introduced them to her, and they would’ve said ‘fuck that.’ Do you think I could have gotten dad to say, ‘fuck that’?”

Emile giggled. “That would have been weird.”

Remy hummed in agreement. Then they petered off into silence. “I love you too Em.”


	17. Chapter 17

“Aw, come on kiddo,” Patton beseeched doing his absolutely best not to laugh at the adorable discontent expression on Anxiety’s face.

“You murdered all of my cows,” the boy grumbled. “All of them!”

Patton did giggle then. “That’s the game.”

“You knew!” Anxiety insisted. “You knew the cemetery was there, didn’t you? You’re familiar with this highway. That’s why you let me take the 150 cows you _cheater._ ”

Patton didn’t bother to deny it. “All’s fair,” he said instead.

“You’re the worst,” Anxiety shot back. “Why don’t we play a game I can win.”

“Like what?” Patton asked, curious.

“Like…” he said. “Like, let’s play a game where whoever’s youngest wins.”

Patton chuckled. “Well I guess you’ve got me beat there.”

“Or a contest to see who has the straightest hair.”

“Sounds like a fun game, but we’d have to wash both of our hair just to make sure neither of us are cheating and have product in.”

There was a pause and Patton glanced over at him.

“Aw!” he cooed. “Do you secretly have curly hair too?”

Anxiety groaned.

“That’s adorable!”

“Is not,” he grumbled, folding his arms over his chest. “It ruins my aesthetic.”

“Aw, stop being so grumpy, kiddo.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t be if you hadn’t _murdered all of my cows._ ”

“I sure did kill the moo-d, huh?”

Anxiety groaned. “What did I do to deserve this?”

“…Carjac-”

“I know, I know,” Anxiety huffed. Patton smiled over at him and reached over to ruffle his hair. “Ugh, stop! No!”

“I want to see the curls!” Patton teased as Anxiety batted him away.

“You’re lucky I don’t have the god damned knife.”

“Excuse me, was that a bad word Mister?”

“Ugh,” Anxiety groaned.

“I will turn this car around,” Patton threatened.

“Oh, yeah,” Anxiety said. “ _That’s_ what would make you stop driving. Silly me. I’ll try not to use the grown-up words.”

“See that you don’t.” Anxiety just shook his head and turned the radio up a bit to ignore him.

“The cows have been cleared up,” Anxiety noted.

Patton hummed. “Do you want to get on the interstate again?” he asked. “It would be about 10 minutes faster and I’m sure if anyone was tracking us, we lost them in all of that.”

“Sure,” he agreed. “I don’t see why not.” Patton nodded and took the next turn back onto the familiar interstate.

“So,” Patton hedged once they were back on the main road. “We’ll be there soon. What are your plans once we get there? Nothing in particular,” he rushed to say when he saw the kid frowning. He was a secretive little thing. “Just, what do you want me to do?”

“Oh, um,” he said, playing with the edges of his hoodie sleeve. “I don’t know.” He paused. “You can leave if you want.”

A smile flickered across Patton’s face. Not likely kid. “Well, I’m not going to leave at least until I make sure you’re with someone.”

“Thanks,” Anxiety said softly.

“I’m with you all the way Anxiety.”

“I still don’t understand you at _all_.” Patton just shrugged and smiled. “Also, you can call me Vee.”

“Ooo a partial name,” Patton said. “I’m moving up in your esteem.”

“I didn’t say that,” Vee snapped back. “My name might be Bob for all you know.”

“Right,” Patton agreed. “Of course. Bob. My bad.”

That caused Vee to smile though he seemed to be fighting it. After a few moments, the smile faded, and he started playing with the strings on his hoodie. “You’ve got to get back to your family though, eventually,” he said.

Patton shrugged, not mentioning the fact that they were literally driving towards his brother this very second. “They’re all adults who can more than handle themselves. My brother’s older than me and the twins have him. You need me a bit more right now.”

Vee thought for a moment, still rubbing his fingers over the frayed edge of the hoodie string. “I have an older brother,” he offered.

“Oh?” Patton asked.

“I tried to call him earlier after my uncle,” Vee said. “He didn’t pick up.”

“Well, I’m sure there is a reasonable explanation for that, just like with your uncle.”

Vee bit his lip. “I don’t know if…” he said, “if he’d be on my side in this or not.”

“What do you mean?”

Vee looked away out the window. “Our mom’s the one who killed my dad,” he said quietly.

“Oh, honey,” Patton said softly. “I’m so sorry.”

“So, I don’t know if my brother would side with her or not. I don’t want to think he’d hand me over to her if I went to him, but…”

Poor kiddo, Patton thought. He wished he could say with certainty that his brother wouldn’t do something like that, but Patton didn’t know enough about him to know for certain. He hoped not. “I’ll help you figure it all out,” Patton promised. “I’ll make sure you don’t have to go with your mom.”

Vee snorted. “I don’t know what you can do, but thanks for the sentiment.”

“Oh,” Patton said. “I think I could do a thing or two.”

“Sorry,” Vee said dryly, “but your reaction to a carjacking was to get me ice cream.”

Patton laughed lightly. “Good point.

“I really don’t want to go with my mom, but I don’t think the cops would listen to me,” Vee said. “She’s technically my mom even though I’ve never even spent the night at her house. Does this make her my legal guardian now?”

“If she’s the one who killed your father, I doubt people would let you go with her.”

“You don’t know mom,” Vee mumbled. “I’m sure no one would even think to try to arrest her for that, let alone convict her. Would they let my uncle be my guardian even if she isn’t arrested?”

“They’d be willing to do that I’m sure. Especially since you’re already 15, anyone would listen to your opinion on where you live.” Vee look at least a bit relieved at that. “So, you like your uncle then?” Patton asked.

“He’s great,” Vee said. “He lived with us when I was really little. He always made me eat my vegetables and helps me out when I’m anxious. He’s a psychiatrist so he knows his stuff.”

“I have a friend whose brother is a psychiatrist,” Patton said. “I’ve never met him, but Logan sends people to him when they need mental health care. It’s a big help for a lot of them.”

“Yeah,” Vee agreed. “It wouldn’t be too bad living with him, I guess.”

“Well I’ll make sure you end up with him and not your mom, okay?”

“Sure,” Vee replied.

Patton shot him a half smile and they continued driving for a few minutes before he exited the interstate. “We’re almost there” he told Vee.

Vee bit his lip. “I hope this wasn’t a stupid idea…” he said.

“Oh, I’m sure it’s fine,” Patton said. He flipped a switch on near his steering wheel that would open the gate for them a few seconds before said gate came into view. He drove up the driveway and chose to park in front of the ‘factory’ instead of trying to park in the underground parking garage which would certainly freak Vee out.

“Just looks like a creepy abandoned factory,” Vee commented, eyeing the old concrete building with its boarded over windows. “It’s almost too perfectly abandoned,” he said, eyes narrowed. Smart boy.

“Ready?” Patton asked.

Vee still looked nervous, but he nodded determinedly after a moment and exited the car. Patton followed him. He let Vee lead the way up the gravel path to the entrance of the building. He studied the door for a couple of minutes and then pushed it slowly open. Patton was sure at this point that someone downstairs had probably noticed them and would come up to greet them soon.

Vee was looking around himself with suspicious eyes. “Okay,” he said. “What do we do now?”

“Probably just wait to see if anyone comes to meet us,” Patton said.

Vee started poking around a bit. “It’s pretty clean for an abandoned factory,” he said.

“Mmhmm,” Patton replied.

He considered a couple of panels near the door and Patton observed him, curious about what he’d do. He made a startled noise when one of the panels came off. “Oops,” he said. He peered into the hole he’d just made. “Well… that’s not good. Whoever put that camera there is probably not going to be happy with me.”

Patton had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. The person who put that camera there _would not_.

Vee set the broken panel back against the wall. It hung off of it awkwardly. “At least we know there really is someone here and it’s not just an abandoned factory.”

“That is good,” Patton agreed. Just then there was a soft ding which Patton identified as the hidden elevator the room over.

Vee’s head shot up to look in the direction of the sound, and the boy shuffled closer to Patton.

Logan himself rounded the corner after a moment and looked over at them with his lips pursed and looking especially cross. “How is it,” he asked, “that you always do exactly what I need you to do in the most irritating and inconvenient way possible?”


	18. Chapter 18

Janus had a couple of seconds to regret every decision he’d made in the past few hours before Roman’s car hit the water. He’d managed to brace himself enough to not go flying into the front seat, but he still was jerked around by the impact. The airbags in front went off when they hit which was just his luck, and the car immediately began to fill up with water.

Roman and Remus were already struggling to get the airbags out of their way and Remus reached over to release Roman’s seatbelt since he hadn’t been restrained himself. Janus jerked over towards the window to try to roll it down.

It rolled down about 1/8th of the way before the automatic system gave out and the window got stuck. Janus took a split second before he dove for Remus’s bag to grab out a hammer he’d noticed in it earlier and swung at the window, shattering it in two goes.

Roman and Remus had already noticed the broken open window, and so Janus went ahead and pushed himself out of the window and towards the surface. He immediately noticed that there was a figure swimming towards him through the water and tensed for a fight assuming it was one of the people who had been chasing him.

He struck out with a fist, still half blinded by the water in his eyes. There was a started yelp as he felt cartilage snap under his fist. “Hey! Fuck!” the figure said in response. “Janus!”

Janus blinked the water out of his eyes as the familiar, if slightly distorted, voice sunk in. “Lena?” Janus asked as Remus popped his head out of the water next to him. She glared at him, holding her nose with one hand and treading water with the other. “Shit, sorry.” Remus seemed to notice what was happening and swam forward to give her a bit of support.

Roman popped up, sputtering a moment later and smacked Janus across the face.

“Karma,” Lena spat.

“How are you even here?” Janus asked, rubbing his nose.

“Everyone went dark and Logan sent us to go figure out what was going on,” she explained. “Then we saw Roman’s car in a high-speed chase and followed you.”

“Speaking of!” Some other guy’s voice called from a few feet away. “Can I get a bit of help?” One of the men from the other car had popped up out of the water and he was currently wrestling with him.

Remus stayed to help Lena out of the water, but Roman and Janus both swam over to help the guy with Lena drag the first guy from the other car and then the second one out of the water.

“Fred,” the other man with Lena introduced himself while he and Janus trussed up the men from the other car.

“Janus,” Janus answered.

“I figured,” Fred replied.

Janus gave him a confused look.

“You were one of the names The Boss was angrily mumbling about this evening.”

“Yeah, well, Logan can shove it,” Janus grumbled.

Fred didn’t comment; instead he just stood up and looked at the two men tied up on the ground. “Well,” he said. “Lena’s car’s only a 5-seater. Guess you two are going in the trunk. Wanna help me out Janus?”

Janus and Fred hauled the two men into the trunk together despite their muffled protests and Fred slammed the trunk closed.

Roman was looking at Lena’s likely broken nose, but she shoved him away after a bit of fusing. “Where have you three been?” she asked.

“We’ve been busy,” Janus said.

“Too busy to answer your phones?”

“They broke.”

“All of them?” she asked with narrowed eyes.

“Well,” Remus said. “Now that mine is at the bottom of a lake, yeah.”

Fred looked over at her. “What about our communication devices?” he asked.

She blinked. “Boss?” she asked to thin air. There was no response. “Shit.”

“You did just dive into a lake,” Janus pointed out in a drawl.

Lena sighed. “Alright. I guess we’re driving back to base to report in person.”

“We were actually heading to Lincoln,” Janus said crossing his arms.

Lena crossed her arms right back. “Well _you_ don’t have a car anymore,” she pointed out.

“It’s also three against two.”

“Uh,” Roman piped in, “Actually…”

He rounded on him. “Oh, come on Roman,” he snapped.

Roman put his hands up in a placating motion. “Look, dude, dad’s already looking for your brother and we’re sort of at the end of our rope. We can go to base and regroup. We’ll share what we know, he’ll share what he does, we can get another car, and we can start fresh.”

Oh, like Logan would be willing to share anything with _Janus_. He’d already made it abundantly clear that he didn’t trust Janus. What other reason would he have for trying to get him out of the way when Virgil was missing? Janus would probably be locked in a cell as soon as he got to base so Logan could make sure he didn’t interfere or give his mother information.

He looked over to Remus, hoping for some sort of support but got an apologetic half shrug in response. Four against one then. Of course. They might as well just toss him into the trunk too.

“Fine,” Janus bit out. “Whatever.”

“Fred, you might have to drive,” Lena said, poking at her nose. She winced.

Roman slapped her hand away. “Don’t do that,” he said. “I wish we had ice.”

“We have ice,” Fred said, opening the backseat door.

“Why do we have ice?” Lena said.

“I brought a cooler.”

“What? When? Why?”

“Before we left and in case we got thirsty.” He grabbed a bumblebee covered handkerchief out of his front pocket and turned to get ice out of a small cooler in the back of Lena’s car. He handed the bundle over to her and turned back to Janus and Remus. “You boys are welcome to a drink.”

He did not seem to register the frown Janus sent his way. He just smiled and took the keys from Lena before shooing them all into the car. Janus somehow ended up in the middle seat between the twins. Roman at least seemed sheepish enough to avoid Janus’s gaze whereas Remus continued to blabber like he always did with a big smile on his face. He kept brushing up against Janus as though Janus wasn’t resenting him an unbelievable amount as Fred climbed into the driver’s seat and started the car.

“Come on Jan, don’t pout,” Remus said. “Want something to drink?”

Janus glared at him, but that did not dissuade him.

“Hmm, let’s see. We have apple juice, orange juice, grape juice, a bunch of different Naked Juice flavors (good choice Fred), a few of the Little Hug Fruit Barrels, grape soda, glacier freeze Gatorade, cactus coolers, Capri Suns in a bunch of flavors, and green apple ramunes. Or I can be your mixologist and make you a brand new drink out of this wonderful selection!”

“Say no,” Roman advised out of the side of his mouth.

Janus glanced over at him. “How about any of the Capri Suns,” he said pleasantly.

“Good choice!” Remus responded, handing one over to him. Janus did not check the flavor. He took off the little straw and removed the plastic before stabbing at the juice pouch. To his mounting frustration, the stupid straw kept slipping instead of going through the hole.

“Here,” said Remus, “let me do it for you.” He took the pouch and poked the straw into it before offering it back to Janus with a grin. Janus stared at him for a moment and calmly reached out a hand to squeeze the bottom of the juice pouch. It spurted all over Remus’s face.

“Oops,” Janus said. He took the pouch as Remus sputtered a bit in surprise and turned away to stare through the front window and idly suck on the straw.

“Welp… _that_ means he’s angry at me,” Remus said.

“I never would have guessed,” Roman replied dryly.

Without a word, Janus removed the straw from the pouch and flipped it over so the juice slowly drained right into Remus’s lap. Then he dropped the empty container onto his leg.

“…Well at least I was already soaked from the lake.”


	19. Chapter 19

“…Huh?” Patton said in response to the clearly fuming man that had just come into the room. At first, Virgil had assumed that he was talking to Virgil, but his eyes were on Patton. “What’d I do?”

Angry Guy took a moment to pause, his fingers twitching like he wanted to squeeze Patton’s neck. “Do you know why I called you?”

Patton opened his mouth.

“Of course, you don’t!” Angry Guy continued. “Because the only communication I’ve gotten from you in the past 5 hours is a phone call where you hung up before I could explain anything and an unintelligible string of emojis!”

“Well, what did you need to talk to me about?” Patton asked.

“There was a missing child,” Angry Guy said.

“Oh no!” Patton replied.

Angry Guy stared at him for a moment. “ _Him_ , Patton,” he said pointing at Virgil. “The missing child was _him_!”

“Oh,” Patton said. “I guess it all worked out then!”

“ _NO._ ”

“Wait, wait,” Virgil said. “Unintelligible string of emojis? You’re his brother?”

“Now, honey, don’t get skittish,” Patton said, which was when Virgil realized he had taken a step back.

“No, no,” Virgil said. “What’s going on? He’s your brother and he’s here.”

“Well, how exactly did you think I knew where the abandoned factory that happened to be a cover for a secret agency was?” Patton asked.

“It’s a what?” Virgil asked.

“ _Patton._ ”

Patton waved Angry Man off. “He already basically knew.”

“Wait,” Virgil said. “My dad is… was a secret agent?”

Angry Man looked a little less angry when he glanced away from Patton to meet Virgil’s eyes. “Yes,” he said. “Your father worked for me for a lot of years, which is why I sent my agents after you. I thought of him as a friend, and I am well aware that your mother is unfit,” his tone darkened considerable, “for a variety of reasons.”

“She killed dad,” Virgil said.

“I know,” Angry Man replied. “Though… I am unsure how you learned that information.”

Virgil didn’t feel like answering; instead he turned to Patton with an accusing look. “You knew!”

“Well, I didn’t know everything.”

“You knew enough! Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Well at first you had a knife,” Patton said.

“He what?” Angry Man asked.

“Then you were asleep. Then you were panicking. By that point I was worried that trying to tell you anything would make you panic more especially because you obviously didn’t want me to know anything about you. So, I decided it was better just to let you lead and figure stuff out when we got here.”

Virgil glared at him. “This is just like the cows,” he grumbled.

“So, the cows were a part of it?” Angry Man asked.

“No, no,” said Patton. “We were already off the interstate when that accident happened.”

“But he just said…”

“It was the cow game. We went past the cemetery near Hudson.”

“Why did you go the back way?”

“He had an active tracker on him,” Patton answered. “He threw it out of the window, but we thought it was best to get off the interstate.”

Angry Man turned to Virgil. “If you had one tracker on you, we should probably check you for more just to be safe. I wouldn’t trust your mother.” His nose scrunched up just a touch and his mouth turned down when he mentioned Virgil’s mom. At least Virgil and Angry Man seemed to be on the same page when it came to how much Mom sucked.

“So, you’re going to help me?” Virgil asked.

“Of course,” Angry Man replied. “I will make sure you are cared for.”

“And I won’t have to go with mom.”

“I would much prefer that you did not, and I am sure that would align with your father’s wishes. Particularly because he had in the past discussed such a theoretical circumstance with me and had threatened to “haunt me” if I ever let you near “that bitch.”

Virgil couldn’t help but chuckle at that even if it came out strained. “Sounds like dad,” he said and then shifted nervously. “So, what’s going to happen now?”

“For now, I’ll take you downstairs and find you a place to rest. Usually, I’d offer you food, but knowing Patton that has likely been taken care of.” Virgil nodded. “We’ll figure out exactly what’s going to happen next once I have figured out all of the other complications of tonight.”

“What other complications?” Patton asked.

Angry Man turned to him. “Well if you’d answer your phone,” he said, irritation coloring his tone once again, “you would be aware that _everyone_ is missing.”

“What do you mean by ‘everyone’?”

“I mean, I haven’t heard from Roman since he checked the bus station near his house,” he gestured at Virgil, “hours ago. Remus has sent me exactly one very unhelpful text. His partner, my double agent, opened the last mission request but hasn’t responded in any way. Having known the man for the last two years, I am certain he is being completely irrational over his worry and doing god knows what. That is assuming he wasn’t found out and captured. I sent Fredrick and Darlene out investigate what was going on, but the last I knew, they were in a car chase and their communication devices cut out. I can’t even get ahold of his uncle after our phone call was cut off while the man was screaming.”

That made Virgil’s stomach clench in worry. “He was screaming?” Angry Man seemed to realize his mistake and grimaced. He glanced over at Patton as though for help. Patton stepped up next to Virgil and carefully put an arm around his shoulder. Virgil curled into the half-hug and allowed himself to be comforted even though he planned to return to being miffed at Patton for keeping secrets later.

“We’ll figure everything out and no matter what happens, I promise you’ll be okay. Logan knows what he’s doing and I’m going to help.” He looked up at his brother. “For now, let’s go downstairs.”

“Okay,” Virgil agreed.

“Maybe I’ll even get a full name out of you yet.”

“What?” Logan asked. “You don’t even know who he is? Did you just kidnap a random child?”

“Of course, I do. He’s Bob,” Patton said immediately. Virgil couldn’t help it, he laughed. Patton send him a wink. “Also, I’d say he kidnapped me.”

“I don’t care to know what you mean by that at the moment,” Logan said with a sigh, “but that isn’t ‘Bob.’ He’s Virgil Gates.”

“Remy’s kid?” Patton asked.

“You know my dad?” Virgil asked.

“Remy’s dead?!” Patton asked which was when the front doors opened suddenly.

“Quit telling everyone I’m dead!”

There was a beat of silence. “Sometimes I can still hear his voice,” said Patton cheerfully.

“Dad?” Virgil asked.


	20. Chapter 20

Janus was being very sulky. Spraying Remus in the face with a little bit of juice was one thing, but pouring the entire juice pouch into his lap, that was another. Clearly Janus was very unhappy with the state of affairs. Remus was glad Roman had interpreted the shoulder bob Remus had given him while getting into the car correctly and had helped Remus pin Janus in the middle. Remus… honestly wouldn’t put it past Janus to try to jump out of the car when it was moving at this point. He was clearly very strung out and in one of his bad headspaces.

The first time Remus had seen him in this bad of a headspace had been after a week “vacation” (He still refused to explain the quotation marks to this day even though Remus now knew who his mother was and what she did.) with his mother and had legitimately planned an assassination of their shared calculus professor thinking she was plotting against him. At the time Remus had thought that had mostly been a joke. Having gotten to know Janus since… it was a good thing Dr. Hawkins had decided to give them a break on the homework for that week.

Remus had no idea where the man’s mind had gone, but he was pretty sure distracting him as soon as possible was the best move. So, Remus did the only think he could think of in that moment to possibly shock his best friend out of spiraling into a pit of cynicism. He leaned forward and grabbed another Capri Sun (this time Strawberry Kiwi instead of Tropical Punch) out of the cooler. He stabbed the straw through the hole and then turned to Janus. “Want another one?” Remus asked. Janus blinked at him stone faced, but then held out his hand. He took the straw out immediately after Remus handed it to him and didn’t hesitate to pour that entire pouch onto Remus’s lap as well.

Remus nodded seriously as though Janus had just made a good point in an argument. He leaned forward and grabbed another one. “Does,” he said glancing at the label on the pouch as he stuck the straw into it, “a Wild Cherry one catch your fancy?” He handed it over to Janus and once again got the entire package squirted into his lap. “Fair enough,” he said mildly, reaching into the cooler once again. “How about a Grape one?”

They went through a Pacific Cooler, a Surfer Cooler, and an Orange one before, finally, Remus pulled out a Fruit Punch one. Instead of immediately tearing out the straw and dumping it on Remus, Janus hesitated at that one. After a moment, he turned away from Remus to stare foward and brought the straw to his lips. Roman was shooting them a bewildered look, but Remus just winked at him. Janus made short work of the juice pouch and then extended a hand to drop the empty container into Remus’s lap.

Remus gave it a moment and then leaned over slightly to bump shoulders with him. He paused for a second and then bumped him again.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Janus mumbled. Remus paid him no mind and bumped their shoulders together for the third time.

“Come on Jay,” Remus said.

“No.”

Remus narrowed his eyes at him and then slammed into him even harder sending him into Roman who yelped in surprise.

“What the hell is wrong with you, you cretin?!” Janus spat, slapping Remus away.

“Oh, so many things,” Remus said. He heard Roman give a soft puff of amusement. “What about you?”

“What do you mean?”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Well I’m stuck in a car with you, asshole,” Janus snapped.

Remus tilted his head. “No,” he said. “What’s really wrong?”

He scoffed. “What’s not, Remus! My brother’s missing. My da…ad of my brother is dead! My mother is trying to murder me in cold blood. And you claimed to be my best friend earlier, but now you are unflinchingly on board with turning me over to your father who is more than likely going to throw me into a prison cell the moment he sees me.”

“Okay,” Remus said. “First things first, dad is not going to throw you into a prison cell when we show up.”

“Oh really?” Janus asked. “And why wouldn’t he.”

“He likes you Jay.”

“Even if that’s true, he clearly doesn’t trust me.”

“If he didn’t trust you, he wouldn’t let you be a double agent for him,” Remus pointed out.

“I’m not a double agent because he trusts me,” Janus argued. “I’m a double agent because I’m Barbara Nelson’s son. I was a calculated risk at best and now I’m too much of a risk even if I was still useful.”

“Dad’s not like that.”

“Maybe not to you,” Janus grumbled.

“Why do you think he doesn’t trust you?”

“Well it’s pretty obvious when he sends another agent to go pick up my brother and meanwhile tries to send me on a different mission as a distraction to get me out of the way. Clearly, he doesn’t trust me to not deliver Virgil to my mother. Why else would he do that?”

“Jay, did you consider that he knows you?” Remus asked. Janus raised an eyebrow. “Dude, just last week you were drunk texting me and dad pictures of you and your brother from your childhood, many of which included Virgil’s father. He may have jumped to the conclusion that you’d be upset about Remy Gates’ death and that you’d act irrationally because of those feelings.”

Janus scoffed. “Irrational?” he asked. “What did he expect me to do?”

“Oh,” Remus said. “I don’t know. Perhaps something like bash in some guys skull against a water fountain in a public park, blow your cover with your mom, explode a car, smash a bunch of phones, get into a car chase and shoot out with your mom’s men that ultimately ended up with you in a lake, poor juice all over me, and spiral into a pit of thinking that everyone in your life is out to get you.”

If looks could kill, well, Remus would have already been dead long ago, but he would have been especially dead right then. However, as it stood, Remus was decidedly not dead. He shot a toothy smile at Janus who glared even more intensely. “All of those things were perfectly rational,” Janus insisted, “and even if I were emotional, that is because my brother is missing which your father did not know about until after he sent Roman. It has nothing to do with the boy’s father.”

“You are worryingly good at hiding your emotions from yourself,” Remus said. “I think you actually believe that. Wonder what you’ll do when we find Virgil and those feelings are still not gone.”

“You and your father can both screw off,” he ground out. Yet, his tone was still somehow milder than it had been before they’d started to talk through his idea that dad 100% inarguably hated him. So, that was progress.

Remus bumped their shoulders again. “Plus,” he said. “If dad did decide to throw you in a prison cell, I’d totally break you out of it, and we’d go on the run. Our future cat has to have a daddy after all!”

“I don’t even like cats,” Janus said.

“Sure Jan.”

“I’m going to pour more juice on you.”

“Kinky.”

“What? What does that even mean?”

“It’s his default catch phrase,” Roman offered. “Try spinning him around and bonking him on the head three times. That usually resets him.”

“Bet I could do it in one if I hit him hard enough,” Janus said.

“I’d say no blood in my car,” Lena pipped in from the front seat, “but it’s far too late for that.”

“Hmm,” Remus said. “What’s worse on car seats? Nose blood, Capri Sun, or lake water?”

“We’ll fine out when it dries,” Janus said.

“I’m charging the agency for a new car,” Lena grumbled.

“Same,” said Roman.


	21. Chapter 21

Emile’s car, of course, did not have a built-in button that would let him into the base’s outer gates like Remy’s would have. Instead, Remy had to get out of the car and put his face in front of the security camera. He waved, and someone must have seen and recognized him, because the gate swung open to let them through.

Remy climbed back into the car and Emile drove up towards what appeared to be an abandoned factory.

“Since you’re not an agent they’ll want us to go inside the shell building instead of down to the parking garage for security,” Remy told him.

Emile had never actually been to the base. He usually met with Logan at another location or sometimes Emile’s office and he met any patients in his office as well. Thus, he had absolutely no idea what parking garage his brother was talking about or where on Earth it could be, but he could figure out where Remy must want him to go because there was only one building in sight.

He drove down the driveway towards what looked like the main entrance of the “factory”.

“Weird,” Remy said as Emile pulled up in front of it. “There’s another car here.” They exchanged a glance.

Remy mumbled something that sounded like “damned kid,” under his breath. They were both scrambling to get out of the car the next moment. Remy went ahead of Emile because he knew more about this place, and also Emile would not have been able to stop him.

The door had been left slightly ajar and Emile could hear voices as they approached.

Emile heard Virgil’s voice (and thank god Remy was right about where he’d been going) say, “You know my dad?”

An unfamiliar voice responded with a shocked. “Remy’s dead?” which was right when Remy made it to the door.

Without missing a beat, Remy threw open the door and said, “Quit telling everyone I’m dead!” Now Emile loved a good animated movie reference usually, but today he couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

There were a few seconds of silence before the one figure he didn’t recognize on sight finished the quote by saying, “Sometimes I can still hear his voice.”

“Dad?” Virgil asked sounding all types of vulnerable and confused.

“Kid,” Remy said, “you are the bane of my existence.” He put his hands on his hips. “I’m dead for 5 minutes and you skip town?”

Emile watched Virgil’s face as he quickly adjusted to the fact that his father was not in fact dead, but simply an emotionally constipated idiot with a flair for dramatics. He narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, and where have you been, old man?”

“Running after you once the wrist tracker said you’d booked it 50 miles away by the time I knew you were missing! Which then stopped tracking!”

“Yeah, well, I threw it out a window because I thought you were dead, and I’m not stupid.”

“Well, your ‘lack’ of stupidity has made my life a living hell for the past few hours.”

“Right back at you not-dead dad!” Virgil shot back hands on his hips and very much mirroring his father with his sass.

Remy paused for a moment and then snorted a bit. “Come here pipsqueak. Your old man deserves a hug after you nearly gave him a heart attack.” Virgil still looked a bit sullen but went in for the hug anyway.

Virgil caught sight of Emile over Remy’s shoulder and drew back from the hug. “Uncle Emile,” he said, sounding relieved. “I tried to call you.”

Emile turned to glare at Remy.

“Oof,” Remy said. “Yeah, that one may have been my bad too.”

“I,” Logan interjected. By the look on his face, Emile could tell that his willingness to let Remy and Virgil have a moment was wearing thin, “also tried to call him.”

Remy just shrugged. “Yeah, well, Boss, someone drilled it into my head not to give out secret critical information on unsecured lines and I am definitely critical.”

Logan gave him an unimpressed look and Remy shrugged and winked at him after a moment. He dug the flash drive he’d stolen from Barbara out of his pocket and tossed it at Logan. “Oh, and also this.”

Logan caught it and raised an eyebrow at it. “What is this?”

“Enough information to want to kill me for it,” he paused. “Of course, that’s not a high bar considering she tried to kill me before I stole it.”

Logan put the flash drive in his chest pocket. “I’ll decide if _I’m_ going to kill you after I look at what’s on this.”

“Fair enough,” Remy agreed.

“So, you’re a secret agent?” Virgil asked.

“Yep,” Remy confirmed. Virgil looked over at Emile.

“Don’t look at me,” Emile said. “I’m just a run of the mill psychiatrist.”

“Who gives therapy to secret agents,” Remy pointed out.

“Even secret agents need therapy sometimes,” Emile said, “and I already knew about the organization.”

Virgil turned back to his dad. “I’m mad at you,” he said.

“Ah,” Remy said. “Yeah…”

“Teach me to shoot a gun, and I’ll forgive you.”

“ _NO_ ,” both Emile and the man he didn’t know said at once.

“Trust me,” the other man continued. Now that he looked closer, the man may have been slightly familiar, but Emile couldn’t quite place where he may have seen him before. “He doesn’t need to learn how to use a gun. He does just fine with a knife.”

Remy considered Virgil suspiciously for a few seconds at that odd comment. “What did you do, you little shit?”

“ _Remy_ ,” the other man chastised.

“He’s heard a lot worse,” Remy waved him off. The other man frowned at him, but Remy just turned back to Virgil. “Now, what did you do?”

“I needed a ride,” said Virgil.

“What about a knife?”

“The knife… helped me get a ride.”

“Did you kidnap Patton at knife point?” Remy asked. Virgil just shrugged. “ _Kid!_ ”

“And you allowed that to happen?” Logan asked the man Emile presumed was Patton.

“He wasn’t exactly scary,” Patton said.

Virgil looked almost affronted. “I was terrifying!”

“Sure, you were kiddo,” Patton said. Virgil pouted at him, undermining his own point.

“From what I understand, he also incapacitated one of Nelson’s men with pepper spray,” Logan interjected. He eyed Virgil. “We should have a conversation at some point in the future.”

“Logan,” Patton chided. “He’s 15.”

“I’m aware of his age,” Logan said.

Virgil looked at him. “Would you teach me how to use a gun?”

“Hey, if anyone is going to teach my child how to use a gun, it’s me,” Remy insisted.

“No one is teaching him how to use a gun,” Emile said. “He doesn’t even have his driver’s license yet.”

“If I agree to take drivers ed… then I can get a gun?” Virgil asked.

“Maybe,” Remy said.

“No!” Emile exclaimed.

“Okay,” Virgil said, completely ignoring Emile’s interjection, “but Janus is not allowed to teach me to drive after last time. He’s the one who told me the gas pedal was the break on that golf cart. I don’t want to crash another vehicle into a body of water.”

“Wow,” a new voice said from the door. Emile looked over to see a group of damp people walk into the building. Emile did not recognize four of them, but he did recognize the fifth. The speaker turned to Janus. “You must be cursed. Wish you would have told me before we used my car instead of Remus’s”

A woman in the group turned to Logan. “We found your kids,” she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And, yes, Janus is in fact included in that last statement from Lena. Thank you.


	22. Chapter 22

Janus did not respond to Roman’s quip about the car. Instead, he shoved past Roman the second he heard the boy’s voice. Roman recognized the kid immediately from the pictures he’d been sent along with his mission directives.

“Virgil,” Janus said, crossing the room to get to his little brother without regard to anything else. “Thank god. Are you alright?” He grabbed his face and titled it as though to look for injuries. Nothing about what Roman had learned about Janus in the past few hours would have prepared him for the way he descended directly into mother-hen mode, cupping the boy’s face with delicate fingers.

He was even less prepared for when Virgil shoved his hands away with an eye roll and a “I’m fine, Janus,” and Janus immediately started to cry.

Janus pulled Virgil into a hug, and Roman winced in sympathy for Janus’s injured ribs when the kid hugged him back tightly. They should really get that checked out as soon as the two of them had their moment.

“I’ve been worried sick about you,” Janus said, voice all types of wrecked. The past few hours of worry that Janus had kept careful hold of lashed out suddenly, and it was even more than Roman had anticipated. “I showed up to the house, and you were gone, and the window was broken.” Virgil was getting a bit wobbly lipped himself, and Roman couldn’t exactly blame him with how gutted Janus sounded. “Where did you go? How did you get here? How did you know to come here? Did Logan send someone else after you?”

“Dad let the name slip,” Virgil explained, “and Mom sent someone to pick me up, but I’d already accidently heard that she’d killed him with the radio Dad keeps in his room. So, I really didn’t want to go with the man, and he was mean especially when I said no.” His voice cracked a bit as he spoke, and he too started crying. “I didn’t know where to go or what to do. At first, I just wanted to get out of the city so Mom couldn’t find me. Once I was out, I decided to try to get here because dad said he worked with the owner, and no one was answering their phones.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Janus said. “That was my fault. I broke my phone. I should have thought about you wanting to call me.” He pulled back to kiss Virgil ever so gently on the forehead.

“Hey, what gives,” another man said, and Roman blinked and actually looked at the other occupants of the room. Both Dad and Uncle Patton were there along with a man he didn’t recognize. Yet, his attention was quickly drawn to the speaker because that was Remy Gates and Remy was definitely supposed to be dead. “I was dead, and I didn’t even get that much of a heartfelt reunion.” Janus seemed to freeze for a moment and then turned to him.

There was a long almost painful moment of silence where Janus just stared blankly at Remy. Roman recalled the short conversation that Remus and Janus had in the car about Remy and how Janus was probably more upset about the man’s death than he was allowing himself to express. Remus clearly had known what he was talking about, because there was a stunned, surprisingly vulnerable look on Janus’s face as he looked at his brother’s father.

Remy casually put his hands in his pockets. “Sup, kid.”

Roman had never seen someone’s face change so dramatically so quickly. His face twisted up into a scowl and his eyes lit up with fury. He looked like he was about to finish the job for his mother.

“You bastard,” Janus spat. “You bastard, you aren’t even dead?”

Remy seemed unconcerned with the fact that the man was basically foaming at the mouth. “You sound disappointed.”

“Do you know how much stress and hurt you caused… Virgil?!”

“Virgil, huh?” Remy asked, and goodness the man must have a death wish. “Don’t worry, Virgil and I already worked that out. I’m going to teach him how to shoot a gun as an apology.”

“No! You aren’t!” the man next to Remy that Roman didn’t recognize said.

“Like that is a sufficient apology for all that duress! How could you?!

“It wasn’t exactly my plan, Jan,” Remy drawled.

“Remy _please_ ,” the man next to Remy said.

“Oh, well, pray tell, what the hell was your plan you absolute ignorant, wretched excuse for a human being?” Janus asked.

“Janus _please_ ,” the man said.

“Just let them do it, Uncle Emile,” Virgil said with a sigh.

Remy scoffed. “Oh, please,” he said. “There was no plan, obviously. Do you know me at all?”

Janus full on exploded in rage at that. “What the hell is wrong with you?! Where do you get off on being such an idiot all of the time? You have a 15-year-old child and you just waltz into danger like it’s nothing and almost die! _I thought you were dead_!”

And like, seriously, Remy really must be comfortable with the concept of his own demise after whatever had happened to him earlier, because all he said was, “What, would you have missed me?”

“ _No_ ,” Janus said, far too intense for that to be the truth. In fact, tears started to prickle at the corner of his eyes.

“Aw,” Remy cooed, still mocking, but perhaps just a bit gentler now. He walked the couple of steps to Janus and threw an arm around his shoulder. “Don’t cry, kid. I’m okay. I promise.”

“I’m not crying,” Janus insisted even though his voice cracked a bit and the tears were starting to escape out of the corners of his eyes. He attempted to push Remy away, but his efforts were weak and easily resisted. He gave up a moment later. “You’re crying!”

“I’m really not,” Remy said with a chuckle.

“You will be if you don’t shut up and let go of me,” Janus insisted even though when Remy tugged him closer into a proper hug, he folded himself into the embrace like a small child and proceeded to cry into the man’s shoulder.

Well that was… an event. Roman didn’t know what to think about Janus at this point. He’d been cold, calculating, and scary at the beginning of their adventure, and now he was sobbing into a man’s arms.

“Aw, there it is,” said Remus cheerfully.

Janus didn’t look at him, but just pulled one of his arms out of the embrace to flip him off.

“As touching as this is,” Dad interjected. “Now that everyone is here and aware that no one is dead.” He looked specifically in Remus and Roman’s direction. The expression on his face was one Roman was very familiar with from his childhood. Roman grimaced even before Dad continued with, “Would anyone care to explain themselves?” in a dark tone.

Uh oh.


	23. Chapter 23

“Would anyone care to explain themselves?” Logan asked the room filled with the most frustrating human being he’d ever met. He must have infused his voice with the desired amount of ire, because everyone in the room seemed to wince simultaneously except…

“No thanks!” Remus chirped. Logan shot him a tired look and stepped forward. “Wait! Dad! No!” In a move he’d been using since Remus was a rambunctious child, Logan swiftly put him in a headlock.

“We’re going downstairs,” he told the others. His son was a bit wiggly when Logan started to pull him towards the elevator in the other room, but he didn’t actually put up a fight. In fact, the wiggling usually meant he was pleased with the attention.

He let Remus go when they got to their destination. The elevator was small enough that they ended up taking it in two groups. Logan ended up in an elevator with Lena, his sons, and his brother.

There were a couple of moments of awkward elevator music. “I am very displeased with everyone in this elevator,” Logan informed them all.

No one responded but Patton who patted him on the shoulder. Logan turned on him. “You are at the pinnacle of my ire.”

There were a few seconds of drawn out silence, and then Patton removed his hand. “Wow,” he said after a moment. “You could hear a pen-acle drop.”

“Kids, you no longer have an uncle,” Logan said coolly.

“That’s right,” Patton said with a smile despite the glare Logan was sending him. “You only have a puncle now.”

Roman snorted out a laugh but looked quickly away when Logan glared at him.

The elevator came to a stop and they climbed out of it. “You all go to the conference room while I wait for the rest. Except you,” he pointed at Lena and her bloody nose. “Fred can debrief me. You go get that checked out.” She shot him a thumbs up (because apparently the lack of disrespect for his authority had rubbed off on her) and wandered off towards medical.

“Um,” Roman said tentatively.

“Yes?” Logan asked, already even more tired.

“Also, Janus may or may not have a broken rib. At least he said he might have.”

“Why on Earth is he walking around, then?” Roman just shrugged in response to Logan’s question.

“And send someone down to look at his Janus apparently,” he called after Lena right before she turned the corner. “Anything else pressing?” he asked the three still with him. “No? Then I’ll see you all in the conference room in a few minutes.”

“Conference room 16 or 17?” Remus asked.

“Remus, everyone here is aware that room 17 is a broom closet,” Logan said. “No one is falling for that again.”

Remus sent him finger guns. “Conference room 17 it is,” he said turning to strut off down the hall. Roman shot Logan an awkward half smile before following after his brother, and Logan’s own brother jerked forward to smack his lips against Logan’s forehead before waltzing off after them.

Why was his family like this?

He turned to wait for the elevator to go back up to the factory and down again. He crossed his arms as it arrived. “You’re injured?” Logan asked as the doors opened.

Most of the occupants looked confused, but Janus looked slightly annoyed. “Remus,” he muttered.

“Roman actually,” Logan corrected. “I’m having someone sent down to look at you.”

“I’m f-”

“Don’t even try to argue right now; your second on my list today.”

“Remus is first?” Janus asked.

“Of course, Remus is first.”

“Where am I on the shit list?” Remy asked with interest.

“Somehow, only 5th.”

“Score!”

“But you’re inexorably moving up.”

“But I’m not in the top three.”

“No, my children and brother fill up the spots above you.”

“You said I was second,” Janus said with a frown.

“Yes,” Logan said. “Also, you’re grounded.” Then, he turned to walk towards the conference room.

“Wait, Logan, what does that mean?!” Janus asked his back.

“It means, Logan owes me a buttload of child support,” said Remy.

“I am not your kid. You are not my dad.”

“Sure, son.”

When Logan made it to the correct room, his family was already hard at work making his life a series of aggravations. Patton and Roman were already bent over some sort of project that involved markers, but Remus was missing. Before even stepping into the room, he turned to the opposite side of the hallway and opened the door to the supply closet.

“Get in the correct room before I make you get into the correct room,” Logan said.

“Come on dad, you know it’s not nice to force someone out of the closet.” On most days, Logan would not have found that at all funny, but today for some reason, it elicited a snort of surprised laughter. Remus smiled up at him from his seat on the floor like he always did when he’d done (or thought he’d done) something clever.

“Don’t,” Logan warned, wagging a finger at him, and trying to smooth the smile off his face. It was difficult since his chest was light with the relief of everyone he cared for being relatively unharmed. “Don’t. That doesn’t mean your forgiven. I am very, very unhappy with you.”

Remus just kept grinning.

“I’m relieved that you are safe and happy to have you back with me,” Logan said, “but I am also very angry.”

“Eh, that’s fair.”

“Now get out of the closet.”

Remus found it fit to obey him for the moment, and stood, following him to the conference room where the others had gathered. Patton had somehow found a stack of name tags somewhere and had managed to convince Roman to help him draw little pictures on them along with the names. Patton stuck one with a broom drawn on it onto Remus when he came in. He noticed Virgil’s had a knife drawn on it and Remy’s a cup of coffee. Logan’s own was, aggravatingly, a mobile phone.

Remy and Fredrick were currently forcing Janus into a chair while Roman avoided the glare the injured man was sending at him, and Emile was talking quietly to Virgil.

“Okay,” Logan said. “Let’s start with the ones who haven’t started to explain yet. Roman?”

“My phone got broken probably somewhere between Janus tackling me and hitting me in the face.”

“Oh, is that why Dad texted me about where you were a thousand times?” Remus asked

“Yes,” Logan said, “and you said you didn’t know.”

“I didn’t say that actually.”

“ _Remus_.”

“I was in the middle of something! …And then I forgot.”

“And then it ended up in the bottom of a lake,” Roman said.

“And then it ended up in the bottom of a lake!” Remus agreed. “Along with Roman’s car and us for a minute.”

“You drove your car into a lake?” Logan asked Roman. He felt like his eyes was going to start twitching. “Is that why you are all wet?!”

“Yes, he did!” Remus said.

“Hey! No!” Roman said. “I managed to stop the car before it went into the lake. It’s not my fault the guys behind us aren’t as good drivers as me and slammed into us!”

“Roman destroyed another car!” Remus crooned, and there was the eye twitch. “What’s that? Three? And you say Janus is cursed!”

“I take so responsibility for the Taurus or for this one!”

“Two’s a coincidence; three’s a pattern!” Remus sang joyfully.

Logan shook his head at them and chose to look over at Janus instead. “And you?” he asked. “You looked at your mission details and never responded.”

“You were trying to send me on a wild goose chase when my brother was missing!” He tried to stand up and Remy pushed him back down again.

“I was trying to get you in a controlled environment before telling you of the issues for fear you would overreact and do something careless if you found out on your own.”

“I already knew,” Janus growled, “and that is not your call to make.”

Logan considered that. “Perhaps it wasn’t,” he agreed, “but you still should have attempted to communicate with me, at the very least so I would have known you were okay. For all I knew, Nelson had caught you in a lie and your cover had been blown.”

“It is blown,” Janus muttered. “I smashed her phone, blew up her car, and disobeyed her. She sent men to kill me.”

That information was honestly a relief in a way. Janus had been in danger constantly while being a double agent and Logan had grown more than fond of the man in the last few years. Not having to play nice with Barbara all the time would do him some good.

“We’ll have to reassign you,” Logan said. “As well as Remus, and you’ll both need new permanent residences.”

“We already decided we’re getting an apartment together,” Remus said.

“You decided,” Janus said weakly, clearly not actually interested in protesting, but needing to keep up appearances.

“And we’re going to get a kitty.”

“Ah,” Logan said. “Well, in that case, I would highly suggest you verify it is in fact a ‘kitty’ before you allow it on the premises. I have made that mistake before.”

“You _love_ Raphael,” Remus claimed.

“Possum,” Roman explained at Janus’s questioning look.

“In fact,” Logan said. “It may be advisable that Remington consider moving as well. Nelson very much knows where you live and will likely be unhappy with your continued existence. At least, you should consider taking up residence somewhere else temporarily. For tonight, I’ll get everyone set up in some of the rooms in the base, but that will come later. For now, we need to get everything sorted out. I have a good overall idea about what happened at this point, is there any other important information I need to deal with immediately?”

Most everyone shook their heads and Logan was about to move on to getting more detailed reports when Remus raised his hand.

“Yes?” Logan asked.

“There are two of Barbara Nelson’s men tied up in the trunk of Lena’s car,” he offered.

“What?” Logan asked.

“They were the guys shooting at us that caused Roman to drive into the pond.”

“I did not _drive_ into the pond.” Roman said.

“You were shot at?!”


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter except for the epilogue! (And anything else that comes in this series later.)

Logan had kept them in the meeting room for literal hours, pausing only to feed everyone except Patton and Virgil (who had actually eaten dinner). Eventually, he decided that he was satisfied with the explanations (Well, no, perhaps not satisfied, he was still very displeased with everyone except Virgil and maybe Emile, though Emile had not helped himself when he’d realized that he’d spoken both to Patton and Remus in the grocery store near Remy’s house early and he and Patton had proceeded to go off on a tangent about pasta.) and had taken them all to some of the hotel style rooms in the base.

The room Remy, Emile, Janus, and Virgil were in had two double beds. Virgil and Janus had claimed one of the beds already and were currently curled up together on it both asleep. Janus had apparently picked up Virgil’s stuffed spider from home and stuck it in his pocket. He had ordered Remy to dry the slightly damp toy with a hair dryer before consenting to laying down. The two of them had fallen asleep easily after their long days, the stuffed spider laying on the top of Janus’s chest and Virgil’s arm thrown around him loosely.

Emile had stayed up longer and taken a shower before emailing his receptionist asking her to cancel all of his appointments for tomorrow (or today as it was by now). He’d climbed into bed a couple of minutes ago, leaving Remy the only conscious one in the room.

Virgil stirred awake as Remy stood up from the chair he’d been sitting on and stepped towards the door. “Dad?” he asked.

Remy took a detour to stand by his bedside and stroke a few of the curls that were still damp from his shower away from his face. “Go back to sleep, kid.”

“Where’re you going?” he asked.

“Just gonna go grab some coffee,” he said.

“It’s night,” he pointed out.

Remy cracked a grin. “Yeah, well, you know me.” He tapped him on the nose. “I’ll be right in the mini kitchen outside.”

“Kay,” Virgil agreed, laying his head back on Janus’s chest. Janus never stirred, dead to the world in the way he only ever was when Virgil was snuggled up against him.

Remy closed the door quietly behind himself and wandered over towards the kitchen.

“Can’t sleep?” Patton asked when he stepped into the little area. The man was sitting at the small two-person table with a mug of what looked like tea and a box of Oreos.

“Having trouble chilling out,” Remy replied. “You know how it is.” Patton hummed in acknowledgement as Remy investigated the coffee maker.

“You know,” Patton said amused. “If your trying to calm down and sleep, coffee may not be the best solution.”

“Babe, do you know me at all?” Remy asked. Patton just shook his head.

“Besides,” Remy continued. “Who said I was planning on sleeping any time soon?”

“You should try to sleep,” Patton said, frown clear in his tone even though Remy was turned away, putting coffee grounds into the machine.

“Says the man already out here eating cookies at half past 1.”

“Touché.”

They were silent until Remy’s coffee was finished. Remy poured himself a cup and went to sit across from him. “Thanks for not shanking the little bastard on sight.”

Patton’s nose scrunched. “I should have known he was yours with that mouth of his,” Patton said, then he shook his head. “He’s a cute kid.”

“He held a knife to your neck.”

Patton shrugged. “It’s not the first time I befriended someone with a deadly weapon on me,” he said. He pushed the packet of Oreos over to him. “I hope you realize I’m filing for joint custody.”

Remy laughed. “I figured after I heard you spent over 3 hours in a car with him.”

“I’m going to teach him how not to curse and why falling asleep during a kidnapping is not ideal.”

“Well, Emile’s already tried his hardest on the first front, so good luck, and the boy likes to nap at inopportune times, what can I say?”

“Takes after his dad.”

“I am both insulted and flattered simultaneously.”

Patton giggled softly.

“But, seriously,” Remy said. “I do owe you for making sure Virgil was okay even if you didn’t know he was my spawn.”

Patton shrugged. “You don’t owe me anything.” He paused. “Well, you could buy me some cheese since I’d just bought a bunch to make mac and cheese, and it all went bad during the long car ride.”

Remy snorted. “Why do the lactose intolerant fear no god?” he asked. “But, sure, I’ll be happy to reimburse you and endorse your hedonistic ways.”

Patton smiled at him and finished off his tea.

Despite his suggestion that Remy head to bed a few minutes before, he did not put his mug in the sink, but filled it back up with water and popped it into the microwave. Remy turned back to his coffee for a moment and immediately felt arms come around him. “Thanks for not being dead,” Patton said into his ear.

Remy chuckled and patted his arm. “You’re welcome Patty, but really what did everyone expect? I’ve got a couple of kids to raise still.”

Patton just hummed and kept hugging him until the microwave beeped. He grabbed his mug then and plopped another tea bag into it.

“So, not what you planned for your weekend, huh?” Remy asked.

Patton shook his head sitting back down. “I was going to make the mac and cheese and watch reruns of Parks and Rec,” he said wistfully. Then he grinned. “I probably would have still been awake at this hour anyway.”

“Oh, Pat. How many times have you watched that show?”

Patton just smiled at him, eyes sparkling. “We really should try to get some sleep,” Patton said.

“Yeah, well, Emmy snores.”

“And Lo kicks,” Patton said, “when he’s not trying to crush me. Not that trying to sleep in the same bed as one of the twins is any better.”

Remy snorted. “Didn’t take Logan for a cuddling type.”

“Oh, he always tries to deny it, but he’s a big softie.”

“Explains why I’m not dead all over again.”

“Hmmm,” Patton agreed. Then he grinned. “I have the Netflix app on my phone,” he divulged.

“…We’re starting with season 3.”

“Of course,” Patton agreed, pulling out his phone.

They got yelled at in the morning by Logan for falling asleep at the table.


	25. Epilogue

“Who’s Virgil?” Patton asked, his voice all innocent and sweet. The boy hiding in the cabinet below him, who, as it just so happened, was named Virgil, closed his eyes and banged his forehead ever so lightly on the inside wall of the cabinet and let out a long (but quiet) sigh. At least Patton hadn’t outright given him up as soon as Dad asked where he was, but it was a close thing.

There was a long pause between the adults above him. “You’re in on it,” accused Dad.

“In on what? I’ve just been decorating this cake.”

“Patton, this isn’t funny,” Dad said. Despite his words he couldn’t seem to not stumble over a couple of laughs as he asked. “Where are the children?”

“What’s a child?”

“ _Patton._ ”

“Sorry Remy, I seem to not know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, you are so Remus’s uncle,” Dad bit out. “Virgil!” he called. “Janus! Disaster twins!” a pause. “Where is the car?!” Virgil bit his lip to keep from laughing. “I know you took it! If it is at the bottom of a body of water for a joke, I will end all of you!”

“Water you talking about, Remy?” Patton asked.

Dad did not bother to engage with that one. “Virgil! You don’t technically turn 16 for another 3 hours. Do you want to make it there?! ...Janus?!”

“I still don’t know who this Virgil person you’re talking about is.”

“Oh, you know, curly black hair, listens to emo music…” Dad paused. “Sometimes goes by the alias Bob V Anxiety.”

“Oh, Bob,” Patton said. “Yeah, he’s hiding in this cabinet.”

“Traitor!” Virgil squeaked, as the cabinet door was ripped open.

“Come here you little monster!” Dad yanked him out by the ankles onto the kitchen floor.

Virgil tried to scramble away, but there was no use. He was pinned in between a wall and a very cross appearing father crouched next to him. “You can’t!” Virgil said, as the man pulled down his sunglasses to look at him. “It’s my birthday!”

“Oh, I know very well it’s your birthday you little shit. Where is the car?”

“How should I know?” Virgil asked, having found out about the car by accident over a month ago. “It was a surprise for me, wasn’t it? You’re getting old; maybe you misplaced it.”

“You probably should have tried that one before you ran away and hid in a cabinet.”

Which was fair, but Virgil had thought he’d try. That last ditch plan foiled; Virgil met his father’s eyes. “I’ll never talk.”

“Oh,” Dad chuckled darkly. “Never’s a long time, kid. Your double agent has betrayed you and your accomplices have abandoned y- Ouch.” The flip flop that had been lobbed at the back of Dad’s head fell to the floor next to them. Dad whipped around to catch sight of the figure disappearing into the other room, and Virgil valiantly tried to use that opportunity to escape to no avail as Dad caught his wrist the next moment. “Nice try, Jan,” he called after the figure. “I’ll get you later. I know where you live!”

Logan came in the back door then, looking very confused about the scene in front of him. He’d been in the back yard when Dad decided it was time to reveal the surprise used car he’d bought Virgil for his 16th birthday. Of course, Dad had not known that when Virgil and Janus had distracted him earlier, Remus and Roman snuck away from Virgil’s party to go hide the car. Logan had probably seen Virgil, Janus, Remus, and Roman take off after slamming and barricading the human door on the garage to give them more time to escape.

“What, exactly, is going on?” Logan asked.

“It seems someone,” Dad reached out to poke him in the face, “found out about his birthday surprise and enlisted your demon children to play a prank,” he bent down closer to Virgil, “but if it’s waterlogged, I will ground you for the rest of your life.”

Virgil could help but laugh. Remus, despite all appearances, was good at subtlety. He’d been slowly ribbing Dad for the last month that the car would end up at the bottom of a pond like the golf cart, which had the desired effect of making Dad think they’d purposefully driven it into a pond as soon as it came up missing.

“I swear to god, Virgil, where is the car?”

“I’ll solve this,” Logan said easily. He walked over to the pantry. There was a squeak from inside. “Roman?” he said, voice firm.

Now, Virgil did have to admit Logan could be scary when he wanted to be, but he still made a noise of protest when a voice said, “…It’s at Uncle Patton’s apartment.”

“Boo!” Remus said immediately, popping up from his own hiding place and pointing an accusing finger in Roman’s direction. “Weak link! Weak link!”

“Uncle Patton squealed first!”

“Uncle Patton’s a traitor! You’re weak! It’s worse!”

“Is there a reason Janus just ran by me, said ‘you saw nothing’, and hid in the empty cooler out front?” Uncle Emile asked, as he came in from the living room.

Dad turned to Virgil. He patted him on the cheek. “I admire your tenacity. You’re still going to be punished.”

“Like, you’re my dad punished or you’re a bastard punished?” Virgil asked.

“Virgil!” Patton said, scandalized.

“Oh, now you know his name,” Dad said, rolling his eyes. “And the second, but,” he stood from his crouch. “For now, I have a different child that needs to be punished first.” With that, he grabbed an ice tray out of the freezer and stalked away.

Finally free, Virgil got to his feet and pouted at Patton. “You betrayed me!”

“Aw, sorry, kiddo,” Patton said. “I couldn’t resist. I’ll make it up to you with birthday kisses!”

“No!” Virgil whined, as Patton leaned in to smack a kiss to his cheek. “No more birthday kisses!”

“Fiend!” Remus said, jumping forward to whack his uncle on the head with a cardboard tube from a paper towel roll. He darted around a startled Patton to grab Virgil’s hand. “Come on emo, let’s make our escape!” He paused at the door to look back at Roman and lobbed the cardboard tube at him. “Weak links don’t get to come.”

Roman yelped, and Remus tugged Virgil into the living room, but then seemed to lose interest in the game, because he flopped down on the couch face first. A cat immediately hopped onto his back.

“Aw! Hello baby,” Remus said, turning his head to let the cat rub it’s face against his cheek. Diesel Fuel, his and Janus’s kitten made a pitiful mewing sound. “I desire nothing more than to pet you, but alas, you are pinning me on my stomach and my arms bend not in that way.” She mewed again even more pitifully.

Virgil took mercy on both the suffering beings and went over to pick her up, scratching her ear as Remus moved to sit up so Virgil could sit next to him. Diesel Fuel immediately put her front paws on Remus’s thighs, keeping her back ones in Virgil’s lap. Remus obediently started to scratch under her outstretched chin.

It was a few minutes of cat petting later that the front door slammed open and a very unhappy and slightly damp Janus came inside.

Virgil snorted. “What happened to you?”

“Remy dumped ice on me,” he said sullenly.

“Ice goes in the cooler,” Dad said. “It’s not _my_ fault you were in the cooler.”

Janus grumbled something at him and threw himself dramatically down next to Virgil. This attracted the attention of Diesel Fuel who turned to him and immediately abandoned the people who had been valiantly petting her to climb into his lap. She moved to lick a wet spot on his shirt.

“That isn’t helpful, animal,” Janus groused, but didn’t move to make her stop or get her off of him.

“Aw, does pretty kitty love her daddy?! Yes, she does!” Remus cooed.

“I despise this creature,” Janus replied, petting the top of her head.

“I caught him giving her little head kisses last night,” Remus informed Virgil. Virgil giggled.

“You saw nothing of the sort,” Janus spat. “I’ll break your kneecaps.”

“I really wish someone in this family could just tell people and animals they love them in a normal way,” Uncle Emile said, stepping into the room.

“Ew,” Remy and Virgil said at the same time.

Emile rolled his eyes. “Despite the distractions, Patton managed to finish decorating our cake,” he told them. Virgil had learned in the past almost year that Patton actually could not cook for anything, but he could decorate things wonderfully. So, the cake had been a team effort with Uncle Emile doing the actual cooking, and Patton providing the decorations. “Want to do candles?”

Virgil nodded and got to his feet. Janus picked up Diesel Fuel and they all made their way to the kitchen where Roman, Logan, and Patton already were. Virgil sighed when he saw the cake. It was beautiful. It was also covered in cows with birthday hats on them. Patton was already hard at work lighting the 16 candles on the cake and smiled at him when he stepped up.

“We are singing happy birthday,” Uncle Emile said. Virgil pouted at him.

“Of course, we are!” Patton said.

Virgil then got to endure the horrible fate of having the Happy Birthday song sung to him before being allowed near enough to the cake to blow out the candles. Patton carefully removed the candles and set them aside. Then, Virgil’s head was suddenly pushed forward so his face went directly into the cake.

“Remy!” Patton said shocked.

Virgil’s head popped up and he glared at his laughing father. “Jokes on you old man, now the entire cake is mine!” He licked some of the frosting off from around his nose.

“And that’s why we also made cupcakes,” said Uncle Emile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end! Thanks so much for reading! Don't forget to follow the series "Road Trips and Everything in Between" if you want to be updated about one-shots taking place in this universe.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're interested in watching me slowly build this fic 100 words at a time, come visit me on my tumblr [@snowdice](https://snowdice.tumblr.com/).


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